


Disaster Recovery

by QueenoftheDarned



Series: Disaster Recovery [2]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Hacking, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Post-Canon, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-20 03:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheDarned/pseuds/QueenoftheDarned
Summary: When Josh is badly beaten in what seems like a random attack, his friends are determined to find those responsible. The plot thickens when they seemingly hit a dead end - it's hard to know who to trust when anyone could be a suspect. Tensions run high, friendships are tested, shaky alliances are formed, Josh is tougher than he seems, and Wrench is... well, Wrench.(Probably not as graphic or angsty as you'd expect)





	1. Chapter 1

<< 0.1.0 >>

It wasn’t a fight. ‘Fight’ implied that you were looking for trouble, that the first savage punch thrown was somehow your fault. Josh didn’t know the right word for sudden, unprovoked violence. He didn’t know if there even was a right word.

Maybe pain was all there was; the shock of the first blow that came from nowhere, and then the slam of your body on concrete before the world condensed into fists and feet. The roar of your pulse in your ears, drowning out the receding footsteps and laughter. The quiet that descended afterwards, as you slowly uncurled from your foetal position, gasping through stinging lips as every muscle in your body screamed at you for being so damn careless.

Josh staggered, caught himself against the side of a parked car as pain shot through his knee. It was dark in the parking lot - he was on the side furthest from the street, but even in the dim light he could see blood dripping onto his shirt. It was in his mouth too. He spat, running his tongue gingerly over his teeth, checking them. His mouth was full of the taste of old pennies. It hurt to stand, but it had hurt to lie there on the ground too, and after what had felt like hours among the trash and dirt, afraid to move and with the cold seeping into his bones, he knew he couldn’t stay there any longer.

He spat again, sucked in a shaky breath, and began the agonising walk - back out onto the street, keeping his head down, hoping the few people out at this hour wouldn’t see him as an easy target and finish the job - back to the one place he knew he’d be safe.

* * *

 << 1.0.0 >>

Sitara woke to darkness and the unmistakable feeling of having been dragged from a deep sleep. Something was buzzing near her ear - her phone. She groaned and fumbled it from her bedside table, muttering a curse as it slid from her fingers and landed on the carpet. She leaned over the edge of her bed and, seeing Wrench’s  name lighting up her screen, scowled and fumbled it to her ear.

"It's two AM," she said by way of greeting, rubbing her eyes irritably. “I swear to god-”

"-You need to come quick." Wrench sounded frantic. Sensing something was wrong, Sitara bolted upright, suddenly wide awake.

"What's happened?"

"It's Josh, he's been beaten up."

“What?” Sitara flung her cover aside and grabbed the closest articles of clothing she could find. “What the fuck happened? Where are you?” she demanded.

“At the hackerspace. Some assholes jumped him on his way home. He’s hurt pretty bad, but…” he trailed off, but Sitara knew she was thinking exactly the same thing. Without a CToS profile, a trip to the emergency room was unlikely to end well. If you were lucky, they’d assume you were a criminal or an illegal immigrant. If not…

“I’ll be right there,” she said. Wrench made a noise of acknowledgement and hung up.

* * *

 << 1.1.0 >>

Every minute of Sitara’s drive felt like an hour. She had always been too much of a firebrand to have a good poker face, but when she clattered down the steps of the hackerspace to find Marcus waiting anxiously at the bottom, she grit her teeth and forced down her rising panic.

“Hey,” said Marcus, his voice low, careful. He was as on edge as she was. “I came as soon as I heard.” Sitara glanced past him at the couch where Josh lay curled up with his back to her. Wrench was perched on the arm of the couch, radiating fury.

“How is he?” Sitara murmured, quiet enough that Wrench wouldn’t overhear. There was a moment’s hesitation, and she felt her mask slip. Marcus must have seen it, because he swallowed nervously.

“Not great,” he admitted.

‘Not great’ was an understatement. Josh's face was a mess of scrapes and bruises, his eye swollen shut.

"Sitara?" he rasped, the word slurred through a split lip. Sitara's breath caught in her throat.

"Oh honey," she gingerly reached out to stroke his cheek. He flinched and drew away. "It's okay, you're going to be okay."

"It hurts so bad."

"I know, but I'm going to help, okay?” Sitara wished she was as confident as she felt. “Do you remember what happened?”

“It happened so fast.” Josh swallowed, wincing as his lip stung. “I tried to take a shortcut home. They came from behind me. I never even saw them." Wrench swore and shot to his feet as if he'd been burned, kicking at the leg of a nearby desk. Josh flinched, and Sitara and Marcus exchanged a look.

"Uh, Wrench? Why don't we give Sitara and Josh some space?" Marcus ventured. As usual, Wrench's temper drained out of him as quickly as it had flared up. His shoulders slumped.

"I'll go see if I can find the first aid kit," he muttered, heading for the stairs. Marcus followed with an apologetic glance over his shoulder.

Josh’s story came out in fits and starts, with Sitara alternating between rubbing an uninjured spot between his shoulder blades and backing off to the other end of the couch when he needed some space. He’d taken his usual shortcut home - he hated taking the bus - across a secluded parking lot off Valencia Street that led through an alley to the next street over. He’d been distracted, thinking about his and Wrench’s latest build, when someone came up behind him and punched him in the side of the head.

“Jesus,” Sitara breathed as Josh lapsed into silence, trying to pull his knees up to his chest and grimacing at the pain.

“I should’ve been paying attention,” he said. He was rocking in place - one of his tells, Sitara knew, for when he was upset. He’d stopped shaking, at least, but if he worked himself into panic mode again it wasn’t going to help matters.

“Hey,” she said, leaning forward to catch his good eye. “This isn’t your fault, okay? Not one bit.” For a moment Josh looked as though he was going to argue, but Sitara gave him a look that brooked no argument. He took a few calming breaths and nodded.

“Wrench made another hole in the drywall,” he said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “His hand’s pretty messed up.” Sitara couldn’t help it - she started to laugh.

“Let’s get you patched up first,” she said kindly, indicating Josh’s various injuries. “Then we’ll worry about Wrench.”

* * *

<< 1.1.1 >>

Gary kept a surprisingly comprehensive array of first aid supplies. Ostensibly, it was because his store was in the middle of earthquake-prone San Francisco, but Marcus had seen how violent gaming tournaments could get. Wrench pawed through the metal cabinet with purpose, muttering to himself.

"I don't even know what half this shit is," he said, tossing a packet of non-stick wound pads onto his "keep" pile. He held up a small canvas bag labelled 'sewing kit'. "What the _fuck_?"

"Keep it, it's got scissors." Marcus watched the bag sail through the air and land on the growing pile. "Hey," he said, "Are you okay?” Wrench still had his head stuck in the cabinet, but his shoulders stiffened.

“No, I’m not fucking okay."

"Wanna talk about it?" This would have earned anyone else a smack in the teeth, and Marcus knew it. Instead, Wrench sighed and turned around. His mask was still blank. It had been since Marcus had arrived.

 “I should have walked him home. I could’ve- could’ve _done_ something.”

“Hey come on, man. It was three against one.”

"But that's what couples do, right? Look after each other and shit. What do  I do? Panic and punch a hole in the wall.” He rubbed his knuckles - they’d stopped bleeding, but he’d scraped them raw. “Some boyfriend I am." He let out a bitter laugh. "Know what he said to me when he came limping down the stairs? ' _Call Sitara'_."

"Wrench, he was covered in blood and in shock. Hell, if it were me, I'd probably want Sitara too. Admit it - so would you."

"I guess."

"But when it's time to make the bastards who did this pay, you know who I'd want to have by my side?" There was a pause, broken by Wrench’s snort.

"Dude. That's fuckin' corny."

"Ah, you love it." Marcus allowed himself a grin. "Hey," he said, turning serious again. "Try and keep it together, okay? For Josh?"

"Yeah." Wrench had started piling stuff into his arms. "Thanks, by the way. For that." Marcus' hand shot out to catch the bottle of antiseptic that toppled out of Wrench's grasp. "And that."

"Nah, dawg. I got you."

* * *

<< 1.2.0 >>

“Does it hurt to breathe?” Josh had reluctantly taken off his shirt and was tolerating Sitara’s poking and prodding with admirable patience. Marcus and Wrench were trying not to stare, but Josh could tell they were. He knew how bad he looked.

"A little." He lifted the ice pack from his swollen eyelid and ran his fingertips over it experimentally. “Talking is worse.” His lip was swollen too, but short of covering his entire face with ice packs, there wasn’t much they could do about that. The lumps covering his body had turned a hideous shade of red, standing out starkly against his skin. He flinched for the umpteenth time as Sitara dabbed antiseptic on yet another of his cuts.

“Keep _still_!” Sitara told him, trying not to sound exasperated and failing horribly.

“I’m trying.” Aside from his cuts and what would soon become some horrible bruises, it seemed that Josh had escaped without any broken bones. Sitara was still worried about the way he kept wincing and holding his shoulder.

“We should get that looked at properly,” she said when he did it again, but he shook his head emphatically.

“No. They’ll want to know why I have no CToS profile.” He frowned. “And then they’ll call my parents.”

“Is that why you don’t want to go? You can't hide something like this. I thought your parents were cool."

"They are. They just…" Josh let his head fall back against the arm of the couch, and put the ice pack back over his eye. "They worry about me. All the time. This would just upset them."

"Uh, news flash, everyone worries about their kids." Sitara’s eyes flicked across the room, felt rather than saw Wrench’s gaze meet hers. "Everyone worth a damn, anyway," she amended.

At some point, Josh drifted off, and Marcus found one of Horatio’s old hoodies and draped it over him. Wrench had taken up his perch on the arm of the couch again, looking like an overprotective vulture. Sitara flopped down on the floor, too exhausted even to find another seat.

"We need to keep an eye on him," she said, more out of a vague sense of worry than actual medical knowledge. "He was pretty sure they didn’t hit him in the head, but if he wakes up disoriented or throws up…"

"What does that mean?" said Wrench.

"I don't know exactly, but nothing good.”

“So that’s it then? We wait and see if he’s okay?”

“Tonight? Yeah.” Sitara let her eyes drift closed, stifled a yawn. “Tomorrow? We do what we do best. Find the fuckers and make them pay.”

* * *

 << 1.2.1 >>

Wrench couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t unusual for him to lie awake, but usually that was because he had slept in until two in the afternoon, or had six different build projects on the go and had ingested enough caffeine to send a horse into cardiac arrest.

It was an entirely different feeling to lie awake with anxiety pooling in your stomach, and Wrench hated it. Above him on the couch, Josh slept fitfully, turning over with a faint groan every so often, trying to make his battered limbs more comfortable. He wasn’t even properly awake - Wrench learned that after the first few times, when he popped his head up to ask if he was okay and inadvertently woke him up. Now he just held his breath, listening to Josh’s breathing and waiting for it to return to its steady rhythm.

He checked his phone again, covering it with his hand so the backlight wouldn’t disturb the others. It showed 4.49. Wrench let his head fall back and watched the spots disappear from his vision as he turned his phone’s screen off once more. He was itching to do something, anything, other than uselessly staring at the ceiling for another two hours.

With a silent groan of defeat he sat up. Careful not to wake Josh or the others, he got to his feet and padded across the room in his socks, to the shared workspace where his laptop sat open as if waiting for him.

Everything DedSec did began with intel, Horatio had told him once. Even Wrench, who was more of a pantser than a planner, couldn’t argue with that. After all, you couldn’t steal a shipment of shiny new toys unless you knew at which depot said shipment would be, and when. That didn’t mean intel was Wrench’s forte, though. _God_ , he wished Horatio was here to tell him what to do.

Wrench chewed the inside of his lip and cast his mind back to the night Horatio had disappeared. Marcus had tracked him down, but it was Josh who had picked up his trail. Wrench nodded to himself as the memory solidified.

As on the city streets above him the night eased into morning, he unlocked his laptop and got to work.


	2. Chapter 2

<< 2.0.0 >>

Josh would have slept well into the afternoon if the others hadn't kept waking him up every hour to ask, in turn, his name, where he was and what had happened to him. Apparently they had made the mistake of Nudling "concussion". According to the internet, any loss of memory was a Bad Thing that suggested a hitherto undiscovered head trauma. Luckily, Josh responded to their questions correctly, if impatiently. After he weakly threw a pillow at Sitara with a pained cry of " _please_ let me sleep!", she decided his head was probably fine.

“Let’s give him some space,” she whispered to the other two, and (reluctantly, on Wrench’s part), they left him on the couch and retreated to the other side of the hackerspace.

“Okay, what’s our plan?” began Marcus, eager to make a start.

“I ran a trace on Josh’s phone,” said Wrench. The others blinked at him, surprise evident on their faces. Marcus looked concerned. “What?”

“Uh, did you get _any_ sleep last night?” Wrench rapped his bruised knuckles on the table impatiently.

“Does it matter? Anyway, look.” He turned his laptop around to show them the map, and pointed to the last place Josh’s cell phone had given a signal. Valencia Street. “This is where he dropped it, right? But the last time it pinged was just before six a.m, which means either it’s run out of battery…” He didn’t bother to remind them of the obvious, that Josh was obsessive about keeping his phone charged. From the looks on their faces, they’d already dismissed the idea. 

“Or the battery’s been removed,” said Sitara as she realised what he was getting at. “Shit.”

“Then we need to get access to the CCTV footage,” said Marcus, getting to his feet. “Even if it was too dark to see who attacked Josh, whoever has his phone could lead us to him.” He made a beeline for the stairs, and Wrench shot to his feet. There was no question of him staying behind. He went to follow Marcus, but Sitara caught his shoulder. 

“That was good thinking, Wrench. Pinging Josh’s phone.”  

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Sorry. It’s just, usually that’s his department, you know?” She nodded to Josh’s slender form, still huddled on the couch, with a sigh. “I wish he’d let me call his family. It kills me that they don’t even know what’s happened.” Wrench felt a sudden surge of annoyance. DedSec _were_ family, and if Josh felt safer with them, that was his own business, wasn’t it?

“Why’re you telling me this?” He snapped. “Some of us get by just fine without mommy and daddy to pick us up when shit hits the fan.” That wasn’t fair and he knew it, but he’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and… well, it was a crappy excuse, but now the words were out there, and he couldn’t take them back. Sitara recoiled, looking stricken.

“Jeez, okay. I was only going to ask if you knew anyone else we could call. Someone trustworthy.” Her jaw moved as if she was trying not to grind her teeth. For the first time Wrench noticed how exhausted she looked. She hadn’t had time to put on any makeup, so the dark circles under her eyes stood out even in the tinted light.

 “Yeah,” he said reluctantly, swallowing his shame. “I’ll text you the number.” Sitara didn’t say anything, but gave a tight-lipped nod, and stalked away to check on Josh. 

* * *

<< 2.1.0 >>

Valencia Street was coming down from the rush hour scramble when Marcus and Wrench rounded the corner from 19th Street. It was a weird time to be out in the city, like being on a movie set preparing to shoot a scene. Within twenty minutes the stragglers and late risers had hurried into work, leaving everyone else to get on with their lives. (Or for Wrench on a normal day, turn over in bed and go back to sleep.) It was the perfect time to do some snooping, or at least, so they thought. 

“Is it just me,” said Marcus, staring at the spot where Josh had described getting hit, “Or is something weird about this place?”

“Something’s not right,” Wrench agreed, his brow furrowing. “Fucked if I know what it is.” They let their eyes wander up to the CCTV camera conspicuously mounted above where they were standing. It was positioned right above the dumpster, probably to discourage divers, and just a little too far out of reach for the average loiterer to vandalise. Luckily, Marcus and Wrench were above-average loiterers. After hoisting themselves up, with Wrench giving Marcus a piggyback, they managed to reach it without much trouble at all. 

Within a few minutes, Marcus had connected his phone to the camera’s wireless transmitter and was looking for the local collection point, where all the footage was streamed to and saved.

“Got it,” he announced, to Wrench’s relief. It wasn’t that Marcus was heavy, but carrying your best friend on your back while trying not to put your foot through the lid of a dumpster and mash your face into a brick wall wasn’t high on his list of favourite activities. He was about to dump Marcus unceremoniously back on his feet when he froze, realization hitting him like a slap in the face.

“Yo, I just realised what’s wrong with this place,” he said. Marcus looked down at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh, wanna put me down before you expand on that?”

“Someone’s cleaned up,” Wrench told him, when they both safely had their feet on the ground. It was obvious now that he had pointed it out - the place was extraordinarily free of the trash that tended to collect in the city’s untended corners.

There wasn’t so much as a lonely cigarette butt.

* * *

 << 2.1.1 >>

When Josh finally surfaced, groggy and stiff, he was met with the smell of greasy food and coffee. Sitara was sitting across from him, typing on her laptop with one hand, a breakfast muffin in the other. She looked up and smiled, but it was a half-hearted one at best.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, as he slowly sat up and stretched his limbs.

“Sore.” Purple bruises were already blooming all over him, which meant he probably looked as crappy as he felt. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, his hand closing on nothing before he remembered he’d dropped it. Seeing his stricken expression, Sitara leaned over and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

"You pwned Lenni with that phone, right?" Josh nodded, but it was more than that. Horatio had given it to him just after he’d first joined up, had flashed it with DedSec’s custom ROM - the first iteration of it, anyway. He’d laughed when the first thing Josh did was improve it. Within a week, every phone owned by a DedSec member was running Josh’s improved OS.

Josh ran his hands over the hoodie someone had placed over him - Horatio’s hoodie - and shivered. He’d been lucky to only lose his phone. 

“You seem ...pretty calm, all things considered,” said Sitara, breaking into his thoughts. ”You been beaten up before?”

“Once. At High School.” Josh gave a shrug that sent a sharp pain up his arm and grimaced. To his relief, Sitara pretended not to notice.

“Shitty feeling, isn’t it?” she said. “My folks sent me to an all-girls boarding school,” she added, by way of explanation. “Some of those girls were vicious.” She paused, her expression unreadable. “ _Anyway_ ,” she shut her laptop with a snap, as if she could trap the memories inside. “I called your grandma-” Josh let out a groan- “and she wants me to drive you over to her place.”

“Can’t I stay here?” Josh protested as Sitara eyeballed him.

“Umm, _no_. You need food and a proper bed.” She crinkled her nose. “And, no offense, a shower.”

“I can’t tell her what happened!”

“I already did.” Sitara’s grip was firm as she hauled him to his feet. “You can’t go through this on your own, okay?” Josh wanted to tell her he _wasn’t_ on his own, that he had her, and Wrench, and Marcus - but then he saw just how dark the circles were under her eyes.

 “Oh,” he said quietly. 

 “Don’t worry,” said Sitara, thinking he was responding to what she’d said. “Your grandma seems cool. She’s got your back.”

“Yeah.” Josh leaned on Sitara’s shoulder as she helped him up the stairs, easing life back into his battered legs. He wasn’t thinking about the pain, though.  
“Hey, Sitara?” he ventured, before they emerged into the bright daylight of Gary’s shop.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For... everything.”

* * *

 << 2.2.0 >>

According to Marcus, the CCTV camera streamed to a CToS box on a rooftop a few blocks away, along with all of the other security and traffic cameras along Valencia Street. Locating it was the easy part, but reaching it was another matter entirely. The closest they could get was a narrow side street squashed between the building and a small park, which ended abruptly in a locked metal gate with a large yellow “NO TRESPASSING” sign on it.

“I’m seeing barbed wire and Umeni goons with guns,” Marcus said, looking up from his laptop. He’d managed to sneak his RC jumper under the gate and nestle it beneath a parked car. “That sign ain't playing.” There was no reply from Wrench, and when he glanced up, he found his friend leaning blankly against the park fence. Marcus shook his shoulder. “Wrench! Wake up!”

“Huhwhat? I’m awake!” LEDs flashed as Wrench started, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. Last night’s catching up with me. You were saying something about dickbags with guns?”

“Maybe you should sit this one out, man.” Marcus couldn’t even finish his sentence before Wrench yawned widely, the movement distorting his mask.

“You’re probably right,” he admitted. “So, what’s plan B?” Marcus thought for a moment.

“There’s a fire escape at the front of the building,” he suggested, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the street. “If you give me a boost, I can climb up and get on the roof that way.”

“Are you… are you sure?” Wrench said slowly. “Look at us, man. There’s got to be dozens of people around. Would you call the cops on us if you saw us climbing a building? ‘Cause _I’d_ call the cops on us. Just sayin’.”

“When has the idea of someone calling the cops ever stopped you?”

“You make an excellent point,” Wrench conceded. “Okay, I’m in.” he clambered to his feet as Marcus recalled his jumper and stowed it away. A few short minutes later they emerged onto the street, Marcus patting his pockets theatrically.

“Oh goddamnit, I’ve locked myself out again!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation.

“Well, ain’t that just a kick in the dick?” Wrench made a show of looking up at the fire escape, exclamation points dancing over his eyes. “Say! Why don’t you shimmy up that ladder? I’ll give you a boost!” There were arguably more people pausing to watch the display of bad acting (and worse accents) than there would have been if they’d simply gotten on with it, but Marcus was having far too much fun to stop now.

“Why, thank you, sir!” He gave a little bow as Wrench obligingly dropped to one knee and interlocked his fingers.

“Tally ho!” Wrench straightened, and Marcus reached up and grabbed the iron railing, heaving himself over. Less than a minute later he was scaling the rickety stairs and clambering onto the roof. Wrench nonchalantly leaned against the front of the building, ignoring all the strange looks people were giving him and looking about as natural as a blue slushie as he waited for Marcus to return.

And waited.

Marcus was no stranger to breaking into CToS boxes - it was kind of his thing, after all. Wrench had seen him in action a few times. Marcus had gotten it down to a fine art… so what was taking so long? He was just about to give in to his curiosity and take a peek down the side of the building when a yell of “HEY! WHO’S UP THERE?” followed by the popping of what Wrench _hoped_ was taser guns echoed down the side street. People walking past whimpered and hurried on, keeping their gaze firmly in front of them.

A few seconds later Marcus appeared on the fire escape, vaulting over the railing and landing with a _thud_ on the sidewalk. Somewhere nearby a car horn blared.

“Got it,” said Marcus, a little breathlessly. “Let’s get going.”

They turned and hurried away up the street, ducking around the first corner they came to, as the sound of sirens in the distance got steadily louder.

* * *

  << 2.2.1 >>

If his grandma’s tiny house had been furnished with a bathtub, Josh might have spent the rest of the day in it. As it was, he had to settle for a record length shower, letting it wash away the blood and filth and loosen up his stiff muscles. At least through the steam and roar of the water he could forget about the interrogation that waited for him on the other side of the bathroom door. When he finally emerged, dressed in clean clothes Frannie had grabbed from his apartment and feeling like he’d been scrubbed raw inside and out, she immediately sat him down and shoved a plate of waffles under his nose.

“Eat,” she said, easing herself into the chair opposite. Josh did as he was told and tried not to pay attention to the fact she was staring at him, her expression inscrutable. When he couldn't take another bite she whipped his plate away and handed him her ancient plastic brick of a cell phone. After much cajoling, he finally gave in and called his parents, giving them an extremely watered-down account of the previous night. 

“ _I'm fine_ ,” he lied, careful not to lisp through his busted lip and studiously ignoring Frannie’s disapproving stare. "They only stole my phone.” He assured them he would visit them soon (another lie) and that he had already reported the theft to the police (and another).  
“I have to finish my coursework,” he said quickly, when his mom suggested they come over. She acquiesced, of course, telling him she was proud of him, which made him feel even worse.

“Joshua Micah Sauchak,” Frannie said flatly as Josh handed her cellphone back to her. “I have heard more than my fair share of lies, deceptions, falsehoods, selective truths and ‘alternative facts’ in my time. But those were some real whoppers.”

“I just don’t want them to worry.”

“No,” said Frannie dryly, eyeing his bruised eye socket. “I get to do all the worrying for them.” She took his plate and shuffled into the tiny kitchen. When she returned she had two mugs - coffee for herself, cocoa for him, like when he was little. “So,” she said, and Josh eyed her warily. Here it came. “What in Sam Hill were you doing out at two in the morning?”

“I was out for a walk,” mumbled Josh, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

“You’re a terrible liar, you know. Even over the phone.” Frannie sipped her coffee loudly. “Fine, I can play this guessing game. You’re not just a programmer, are you? Any more than Wrench is a mechanic.” She chuckled darkly as Josh stared. “Don’t give me that look. I’ve had my suspicions for a while.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It was clearly important to you. At least, that’s what I thought. You’re not dealing drugs, are you?” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he drew back.

“No!”

“Then why not go to the police? Are you in some kind of trouble?” She saw Josh hesitate and pursed her lips. “I see.”

“It’s not what you think,” Josh insisted. “Please, you can’t tell Mom and Dad. They won’t understand.”

“I’m having trouble grasping the finer points myself.” Frannie’s expression darkened. “Well, you’re a grown man, so if you want to keep on hiding things from your parents, then that’s your choice. But it’s time to be honest with me, unless you want to walk home.” Ah, that was it then. Josh had never been great at reading people, but there was no mistaking the look Frannie was giving him. It was a look that said ‘ _checkmate, kiddo_ ’.

“Fine,” he said.

“Good. Well then, tell me everything,” said Frannie, regarding him over the rim of her mug. “Starting with what you _really_ do for a living.”

* * *

<< 2.3.0 >>

While Wrench sloped off to catch a few hours’ sleep (and thus avoiding any of Sitara’s residual wrath), Marcus and Sitara wasted no time scouring the CCTV footage. The task was made easier by the wall-o’-screens - formerly the DedSec follower wall - a towering construction of refurbished computers and monitors that dominated the far end of the hackerspace.

It didn’t take long for them to realise something was amiss.

“This is suspicious as fuck,” said Sitara, grabbing Marcus’ laptop. A dozen screens rewound, flickered and resumed. “This is the time when Josh would have walked through here, right?”

“Yeah, here he is.” Marcus pointed to a feed from a camera stationed further down Valencia Street, where a familiar figure in a green hoodie passed through the bottom left of the grainy shot and out of sight.

“Okay, but look at the parking lot.” Sitara jabbed her finger at a different screen - the feed from the camera Marcus had hacked in the parking lot earlier.

“Where is he?”

“Right? It wouldn’t have taken him that long to- _whoah!_ ” Sitara practically jumped out of her seat - “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“The timestamp.” Sitara grabbed the laptop again and shuffled backwards through the footage. This time she stayed standing, staying close enough to the screen to read the timestamp carefully. Marcus joined her. Sure enough, just after Josh passed out of the first shot, the footage of the parking lot gave an almost imperceptible flicker, the time stamp jumping ahead.

“Yo, what the fuck.” Marcus drew back, his mind racing. “Did someone _delete_ the CCTV footage?”

“It sure looks like it.” Sitara was fuming now. “Just over twenty minutes of it.” A silence fell over them as they processed this. Marcus uttered a curse under his breath as something else occurred to him.

“The dumpster wasn’t there when we went down there earlier,” he said, pointing. “It had been moved right underneath the camera.” He grabbed his laptop and fumbled his way through several hours’ worth of unchanging video stills before he found what he was looking for. 

“Here.” He brought up the feed again, timestamped at around six fifteen in the morning. Just as he remembered, the dumpster was sitting right under the camera, almost completely out of the shot.

“So someone moved it? Why would they do that?”

“Maybe it was in the way. If they grabbed Josh’s phone too...” he was clicking his way back through the stills now, looking for the right moment. The screen flickered, and the dumpster moved back to its original position. “ _There_ ,” he said, and switched it over to playback mode. Several long seconds passed, before the screen jumped, lightening instantly as the timestamp skipped ahead by half an hour, the dumpster along with it.

“Oh my god,” Sitara tried and failed to order her thoughts.

“Wrench was right,” said Marcus, grimly.

“What am I right about?” Wrench’s groggy voice came through the tinny speaker on Marcus’ laptop. Marcus bit back a groan. He’d forgotten to close the DedSec VoIP channel. He looked to Sitara for help, but her expression had gone blank. She coolly ignored Wrench as he repeated his question.

“It looks like someone did go back to the parking lot this morning,” Marcus told him. “But they or someone else has deleted the CCTV footage.” There was a pause as Wrench absorbed this new information.

“Seriously? God _damnit_!”

“But it narrows down our potential suspects,” Marcus added quickly, before his friend’s temper could kick off again. “It’s got to be someone with at least the same level of access to the CCTV footage as us, maybe even more.” Sitara’s eyes widened.

“Wait… d’you think it could have been Prime Eight?” Marcus made a face.

“Lenni _would_ have a motive. You know, after the RenSense op.” Lenni had never actually come out and admitted that her implant was infected with malware, but she hadn’t been spotted using it since then, either. For someone who liked to shove her supposed superiority in people’s faces, this was telling.

“So? We gonna question the shit out of her or what?” Wrench said impatiently. From the noises in the background, he was wide awake and practically tearing his garage apart in his eagerness to throw himself back into the investigation.

“Uh, that depends.” Marcus eyed his laptop suspiciously. “Are you gonna try and murder Lenni?”

“Before or after she talks?”

“Yes.”

“I will try, but I can make no promises,” said Wrench. Marcus considered this.

“Close enough. I’ll swing by in a bit.”

* * *

<< 2.3.1 >>

Josh’s cocoa had long gone cold by the time he’d finished talking. He sipped it anyway, not wanting to hurt his grandmother’s feelings. Was that absurd? Probably. She had gone very quiet during his explanation, though her frown had deepened. The silence stretched on, and Josh was just about to suggest he call for a cab, when Frannie broke it with a faint laugh.

“Did you know,” she said slowly, her fingers tapping absently on the table, “When I was nineteen, I was arrested during a protest in Oakland.”

“What were you protesting?”

“The draft, mostly. Young men like you being shipped off to Vietnam. But there was other stuff, too. The same feeling of being crushed by this big, hungry machine we had no control over.” Josh said nothing; he was trying to picture a nineteen-year-old Frannie  facing down a squad of police officers in riot gear. He felt something start to slide into place - he couldn’t put a name to it, but it was there, at the back of his mind.  
“So,” Frannie said, pulling herself back to the present. “You don’t want your parents to know about your gang of ne’er-do-wells. I suppose that’s your choice. But this business with you getting brutalised…” she trailed off and pursed her lips. “Is it connected to this hacking business?” The word _‘hacking’_ sounded foreign in her mouth.  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe.” It was true - Horatio, Marcus, Wrench… at this point, Sitara was the only person who hadn’t been snatched, arrested or had someone try to kill them. That was a worrying thought. “I can’t stop. Please don’t ask me to stop.” Frannie rolled her eyes.

“I wouldn’t do that to you.” She sighed and took his empty mug, then shuffled off to the kitchen. When she returned, the corners of her mouth had turned up wryly. “When I was your age, I thought I was invincible too. Hold on to that - you can’t change the world if you’re scared all the time.” Looking up at her in surprise, Josh felt something else slide into place. “Don’t mistake this for me giving you permission to continue,” Frannie told him. “That’s not for me to give. It’s your life, after all.”

“But you’re not going to tell mom and dad.”

“No. I won’t.” For the first time since the night before, Josh smiled. It didn’t last long - the scab on his lip stung in protest, and it ended up more of a grimace.  
“That young lady who called me, what was her name?” Frannie asked suddenly. “Samara?”

“Sitara.”

“She’s your boss?”

“We don’t really have-”

“- _Pshh_.” Frannie flapped her hand dismissively. “I’m not stupid. Leader, figurehead, head honcho, queen bee, call her whatever you like. You listen to her, don’t you? I’d like to meet her. She reminds me of me, minus forty years and twenty pounds.” Just thinking about Sitara and Frannie in a room together was enough to make Josh break out into a cold sweat, but he nodded anyway. He suspected whether he actually agreed or not wouldn’t make much of a difference either way.

“Okay.”

“Good.” Frannie nodded with an air of faint satisfaction. “Now then,” she added, all trace of sympathy gone as she rubbed her hands together briskly. “Since you’re feeling better, you can do the washing up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re wondering who the hell Frannie is, she’s from my other story, 'Good Samaritan'. It’s quite stupid and (I think) a little bit funny, so check it out if that’s your kind of thing. Or, you know, don’t. That’s okay too. I won’t mind.


	3. Chapter 3

<< 3.0.0 >>

Tracking down Lenni wasn’t a difficult task. DedSec members tended to avoid her favourite haunts on principle, but those brave (or foolish) few who refused to change their habits had turned Lenni Avoidance into a kind of sport. They used the DedSec message boards to keep a kind of real-time warning system in place, reporting her movements when they saw her. It was a bit creepy, but then so was Lenni.

The beer garden on Pier 39 was technically neutral ground, in neither DedSec nor Prime Eight territory. Lenni didn’t exactly look thrilled to see Marcus and Wrench when they walked in and pulled up seats at her table.

“Oh fer Chrissakes,” she said peevishly as they sat down. “What do _you_ want? You know they don't allow dogs in here, right?" That last part was aimed at Marcus, with a meaningful head tilt in Wrench’s direction.

“That’s real cute, Lenni,” said Marcus, kicking Wrench under the table before he could lunge across it and throttle her. “We’re just here for some information.” She had both of her sleeves pulled down over her forearms despite the mild weather, he noticed with satisfaction.

“Ugh, _fine_.” Lenni rolled her eyes and began to dig in her pockets. Marcus had passed a “no smoking” sign on the way in, with a “no vaping” sign tacked on beside it for good measure. Part of him wondered if the second one had been added because of smartasses like Lenni. As she took out her vape pen, he hoped he could get a proper answer out of her before she got all three of them kicked out.

"Josh got the shit kicked out of him last night on Guerrero Street,” he said bluntly. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Lenni's eyes widened, and for a moment Marcus thought he saw a trace of actual, human emotion pass over her face. Then she smirked and tutted, ruining the moment.

"That was fucking careless of him, wasn't it?" she said, taking a drag. "No, I don't know anything about it - what, you think I'd hurt your lil’ pumpkin?”

“I dunno, would you? How _is_ your implant doing, by the way?” Marcus tapped his forearm, and the folds of Lenni’s face creased into a scowl.

“None of your beeswax, you fuckin’ reprobate,” she snapped. “And no, I had nothing to do with it.”

“What about your Prime Eight buddies?”

“Even if I did know, what makes you think I’d tell you?” Lenni inhaled another lungful of vapour and let it stream out of her nostrils in what might have been the singularly least attractive thing Marcus had ever seen.

“Because we’ll toss you over the side of the pier if you don’t?” Wrench suggested. His tone was light, but he was sitting like a coiled spring. All that tension had to go somewhere. “Maybe the tourists will think you’re a sea lion.”

“Oh, is that a fat joke? That’s rich,” Lennie sneered, “coming from you, Frankenstein. Oh, _puh-lease_ ,” she added, when Wrench shot out of his seat, looming over the table at her. “What are you gonna do? Hit me?” she gave a little shriek of laughter. “You DedSec pussies are all the same. All talk and no teeth.” She bared her own teeth as if to emphasise her point. “Maybe if y’all weren’t so useless, baby-face wouldn’t have gotten mugged, or whatever. Wouldn’t fuckin’ happen to any of _my_ crew.” Wrench might have committed several felonies right then, if Marcus hadn’t jumped up and hooked his arm around his shoulders.

“It’s not worth it, man,” he forced through gritted teeth as he manhandled Wrench away from the table and towards the door. He half-dragged his friend back out into the sunshine, Lenni’s smug voice fading behind them.

“You should've let me smash that ogre’s head open,” Wrench snarled, wrestling himself free and aiming a kick at a nearby bollard. A group of tourists glanced nervously his way, giving them both a wide berth.

“I know, Wrench,” said Marcus. “But she didn’t know anything, and it wouldn’t have helped Josh.”

"The bitch was lying!"

"I don’t think she was. She didn't bat an eyelid when I got the street name wrong. If she'd known anything she wouldn't have been able to resist correcting me." He frowned and continued, more to himself than to Wrench, who was still taking out his fury on the unfortunate bollard.

"Something about this whole thing just doesn't add up. From what Josh said, it was a random attack. Except now we know someone went to the trouble of covering it up."

"Argh, I hate this!” a few people had stopped to stare. Marcus grabbed the back of Wrench’s jacket and pulled him away.

“Yo, stop that. You’re gonna get us both arrested-” his eyes went wide. “The cops!”

“Fuck, where?”

“No, I mean, the cops have access to CCTV footage - it’s how they verify potential incidents flagged by CToS.”

"Yeah, so?"

"So we need to get back to the hackerspace. Right now."

* * *

 << 3.0.1 >>

Sitara was exhausted, pissed-off and strung out, but she sure as hell wasn’t idle. She got to work as soon as Marcus left, downing an energy drink to stave off exhaustion for a while longer.

San Francisco was a big place, but DedSec’s followers came from all walks of life. It stood to reason that _someone_ had been around Valencia Street early that morning. She put out feelers with her old street artist buddies too, since they tended to be out and about at odd hours.

 _One of our own has been attacked, practically on our doorstep,_ she typed. _Since we can’t rely on CToS to find those responsible, it falls to us. If anyone has seen anything unusual, no matter how insignificant it may seem, please let me know._

More than an hour passed, with only a handful of responses - mostly useless platitudes, with some wondering who had been attacked. Sitara paced back and forth, alternating between re-watching the CCTV footage in case she’d missed something, and obsessively scrolling through the same comments over and over. She was so abuzz with nervous energy that she almost didn’t register the latest reply when it appeared.

 _My brother walks to work along Valencia Street,_ it said. Sitara stopped tapping nervously at her keyboard and stared.  
_He saw a blue van and some guys picking up trash in the parking lot. He says he only remembers it because the guys weren’t wearing hi-viz gear. He thought maybe they were doing community service. I don’t know if this has anything to with our guy, but I hope you find the ones who did it._

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was _something,_ at least. Sitara sank back in her chair, feeling drained. It was nearly six o’ clock in the evening - Marcus had texted to say he and Wrench were on his way back with some much-needed pizza. They could compare their puzzle pieces and try to figure out what it all meant, but they were still a man down. 

Sitara reluctantly grabbed her phone. They needed help - _real_ help, not the well-meaning but out-of-control mass that was DedSec’s follower base. They needed a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. 

They needed Raymond Kenney.

* * *

 << 3.1.0 >>

"It’s a cryin' shame," Ray declared, scowling. "That kid's got more potential in his pinky finger than all the thugs in this city combined."

They had gathered around the central workstation to compare notes. They had ruled out Prime Eight, but that didn’t narrow down the list of potential suspects.

“We don’t even _have_ a list,” Sitara had pointed out. “It could literally have been anyone. We were only looking at other hackers because of the missing CCTV footage.”

They’d argued back and forth for a while, their pizza congealing on the table, hardly touched. Now they didn’t even have the energy to agree with Ray. He looked around at their sour faces, each lost in their own thoughts.

“It would help,” he said mildly, “if we had a motive. Who’d want to hurt Josh? Was it revenge, or did he have something they wanted?” Marcus, who had been resting his head in his arms, looked up.

“His phone. Someone went back to the parking lot early this morning to get it. And they cleaned up after themselves.”

“Crap!” Wrench stiffened and slapped his hand on the table. “What if Lenni was looking for a way to remove Josh’s malware from her implants?”

“We ruled out Lenni,” Marcus reminded him.

“I’m ruling her back in.” Sitara shot Wrench a sharp look.

“God, would you _stop_?” she snapped. “I don’t like Lenni either, but this theory of yours doesn’t even make sense. They originally left the phone behind, right?” She turned to Marcus for confirmation.

“Yeah.” Marcus shrugged apologetically. “Sorry man, but I think it’s time we started looking elsewhere.”

“What, you’re basing this off a five-minute conversation with Prime Eight’s biggest douchebag?” Wrench downed the rest of his drink and got to his feet. “Whatever,” he shrugged. “You three can sit here and _talk_ all night, if that’s what you want.” Sitara shook her head at him incredulously.

“We’re trying our best, Wrench!” she cried.

“Well, if this is your best, it sure as hell isn’t going to help my boyfriend.” Wrench retorted. He spun on his heel and made for the stairs.

“What, you think we don’t care about him too? How fucking dare you! _Don’t just walk away!”_ Sitara looked as if she were about to go after him, but Marcus reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Let him go,” he said gently. “It’s prob’ly best if he walks this off. _I know,_ I know,” he added when Sitara opened her mouth to protest. “He’ll be back in a couple of hours, feeling like a tool.” 

Sitara pursed her lips, but sank back down in her chair, her head in her hands. An uncomfortable silence fell on the hackerspace. Ray, who had long ago learned to tune out the bickering, stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"The way I see it,” he mused, “there's only two groups who know what really happened. The dipshits who did it, and the good ol' S.F.P.D."

"That's what I’m thinking, too. But the police have beefed up their security since our run-in with the FBI,” Marcus said. Beside him, Sitara sullenly rubbed condensation off the table with her sleeve.

"I might have a little somethin' for ya, there." Ray shifted in his seat. "I was gonna use it to get them off my back, but..." he grimaced. "This shit's personal, too."

"So? What is it?”

"Let’s call it a… Forward-Moving Tool For Creating Open-Door Opportunities.” Marcus tried to wrap his head around the acronym, realised there wasn’t one, and frowned.

“Uh… you got a shorter name for it?”

“How about Marvyn?”

“Sure, okay. So… this will get me into the S.F.P.D’s system?”

“Well, _you’ll_ have to get in first. But I doubt that will pose much of a problem for you. Hell, you’ve already been inside once.” Marcus _had_ been inside the S.F.P.D’s headquarters once, but that didn’t mean he was eager to repeat the experience. He’d almost had his face taken off with a large caliber pistol for his trouble, but he decided not to mention that.

“Thanks, Ray,” he said, steeling himself for the job ahead. _It’s for Josh,_ he told himself. _He’d do the same thing for you._ He recalled the night he and Josh had infiltrated Fort Point - or rather, _he’d_ infiltrated Fort Point, and Josh had spent an hour hiding in a port-a-potty. _Okay,_ he thought, _maybe not_ literally _the same thing._

Sitara must have noticed his apprehension, because a scheming smile spread across her face. It was better than the scowl she’d been wearing since Wrench’s sudden departure, but it still made Marcus nervous.

“I think I can save you the trip downtown,” she said. “Ray, each Bay Area police department is still connected to the same network, right?”

“Far as I can tell, yeah.” Sitara’s grin widened.

“So Marcus doesn’t actually need to physically _be_ at their headquarters.”

“Uh, Sitara? Hate to burst your bubble, but every police station is going to be full of cameras,” said Marcus. “And, you know. Cops.”

“Which is why you’re not going to sneak in.”  
  
“You want me to just walk in the front door?” Sitara crossed her arms.

“Problem?”

* * *

 << 3.2.0 >>

Wrench didn’t know where he was walking to, only that he couldn’t stop. There was that itch again, the little voice at the back of his mind that told him he had to _do something_. It was starting to drizzle, the street turning slick beneath his sneakers.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he took it out and glanced at it. Frannie’s name appeared on the screen. He felt a twinge of guilt - he hadn’t spoken to Josh all day. He’d been playing detective with Marcus. His thumb hovered over the accept call button.

 _Just answer, idiot,_ he thought. _Ask him how he’s feeling, tell him you’re on your way home. Tell him you love him. Tell him everything’s going to be okay._

But everything wasn’t okay, and the thought of lying to Josh about where he was made him feel queasy. His phone stopped vibrating and the screen dimmed, and with a sigh he shoved it back into his pocket and started walking again.

He found himself on a strip of tattoo parlours, nightclubs and sex shops. A waif with gemstone ear stretchers and enough eyebrow piercings to resemble a crested gecko stood smoking under a shop awning. She eyeballed Wrench as he passed, and he realised where his feet had brought him; this was Prime Eight territory.

He vaguely knew the nightclubs where Lenni’s cronies hung out, from the same Lenni Avoidance forum threads he and Marcus had used earlier. He found the first one easily, all neon lights and tacky signage. He half expected someone to recognise him as DedSec and turn him away at the door, but the bouncer just grinned approvingly at his mask and waved him through.

As Wrench descended the dimly lit stairs he felt his phone vibrate again. This time he ignored it, stepping through the double doors at the bottom and letting the thumping bass and the humid press of bodies swallow him up.

* * *

 << 3.2.1 >>

It had just turned midnight, according to the clock in Frannie’s kitchen, and Josh was frantically pacing up and down, arms wrapped tightly around himself.

“He’s still not answering,” he said, for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Why isn’t he answering?” Frannie sat at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, nursing a cup of tea.

“He’s probably asleep, like you should be,” she admonished him. Josh bit back an acerbic reply - as a rule, Wrench never turned in before midnight, but of course he never ignored Josh’s calls, either.

“What if something’s happened?” he clenched and unclenched his fists. “Something must have happened. Something’s happened and it’s _all my fault-_ ”

“Joshua. You’re getting yourself in a state.” Frannie eased herself out of her seat, then in one expert movement stepped into his path, prised her phone from his grasp and steered him towards a chair. “Take deep breaths, and count to ten.” Josh gripped the edge of the table with white-knuckled hands. 

“Heaven preserve me from twenty-year-olds,” Frannie muttered, vowing to skin Wrench alive the next time she saw him. “We’re going to call Samara,” she decided, speaking partly to herself and partly to Josh, who wasn’t listening.

Sitara answered on the second ring, her voice artificially bright.  
“Hi, Josh! How are you feeling?”

“It’s Frannie. Josh is-” she eyed her grandson, rocking anxiously in his seat, and decided not to finish that sentence. “Have you heard from Wrench, dear?” There was a long pause, and her heart sank.

“He left hours ago,” said Sitara, her voice a semitone or two higher than it was before. “I thought maybe he was with you.”

“I see.” Frannie sucked her teeth. She was going to _murder_ that boy. “Thank you, honey. You be sure to call or text me if you see him.” Sitara promised she would, her voice tight with anxiety, and Frannie made appropriately soothing noises at her until she hung up. She turned back to Josh, who was staring up at her with wide eyes, and sighed. It was going to be a _long_ night.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

<< 4.0.0 >>

Wrench opened one bleary eye and ran his tongue over chapped lips. His mouth was dry and sour, and his stomach churned like a cement mixer. He managed to lift his head, groaning as a red-hot pain shot through his skull. He was lying on a filthy couch in an even filthier room, his head pounding in time with the bass seeping in through the walls. As he squinted into the gloom, trying to piece together the events of the previous night, his stomach rolled and he let out a moan of pure misery.

There was a sticky patch on his jacket that smelled of stale beer, and a vague memory began to assert itself. Strobe lights, angry shouting, a thrown punch... he clenched his fist and his knuckles throbbed obligingly in confirmation. The rest of the night was a blur of screams, cigarette smoke, and the wail of rapidly approaching police sirens.

“Oh, you’re alive. Pity.” Lenni’s voice dragged him back to the present. Wrench winced - Lenni’s voice was comparable to nails on a chalkboard when he was sober. Hung over, it was like a dentist drill to the eye socket. He weakly turned his head to find the bespectacled hacker looming over him, her expression twisted with distaste. “Is that _your_ puke on your shoes? Actually, don’t answer that.”

“What the hell am I doing here?” Wrench eased himself up into a sitting position. He felt like he’d been run over by a Nudle bus. He ran a hand over his mask, checking it was still in one piece.

“Well you see, when a mommy Frankenstein and a daddy Frankenstein love each other very much-”

“Fuck you, that’s not what I meant.”

“You started a goddamn brawl. In _my_ club.”  Lenni didn’t actually _own_ the club, but the amount of money she paid under the table to get the management to turn a blind eye to Prime Eight’s activities warranted her arrogance, in this case. “It was a shit show. Someone called the cops.” She leaned over and spat, as if the word had left a bad taste in her mouth. Wrench’s stomach heaved again.

“So you kidnapped me?” he managed to say, before he had to sacrifice his last shred of dignity and put his head between his knees.

“I _rescued_ you, you ingrate.” Lenni rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her greasy hair. “Would you rather have woken up in the drunk tank?”

“Prob’ly would smell better,” Wrench mumbled. Lenni pretended not to hear him, but when his stomach threatened mutiny, she shoved a trash bin into his hands. He pushed his mask up onto his forehead as the room swam around him. 

“I want to cut a deal,” said Lenni, when he’d finished. Wrench wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Go to hell.”

“Oh for the love of- you’re stuck in an enemy bunker with no phone signal, puking into a trash bin. Are you _seriously_ going to act like an asshole?” Lenni’s tone could have cut glass. Wrench made the mistake of looking up - without his mask he got the full force of her disdain. “God, this might be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Wrench _felt_ pathetic - he couldn’t even summon the energy to cuss her out. He slid his mask back into place, shut his eyes and leaned back into the threadbare couch, clutching the bin with one hand and rubbing his temples with the other. He’d had worse days, but this one was turning out to be a solid contender.  
“What kind of deal?” he said eventually.

“Sweet cheeks screwed up my bio mods,” said Lenni. “The useless dipshits I’ve been working with have no idea how to break his encryption.” The alcohol-soaked mass of grey matter between Wrench’s ears finally began to slide into some semblance of order. 

“You want Josh to fix your implants.” Lenni leered at him - it was as close to a genuine smile as she got - and nodded.

“Bingo. Assuming he’s not crippled or in a coma.” She leaned closer. “You pansy-ass Robin Hood douchenozzles piss me off, but he didn’t deserve that. Get him to fix me, and I’ll help you find and punish the fuckers who did it.” Wrench hesitated. ‘Lenni’ and ‘helpful’ didn’t belong in a sentence together - hell, they didn’t belong in the same canonical universe.

“How do I know you didn’t do it?” he said, voicing the suspicion that had led him to his current predicament in the first place.

“You don’t,” she said bluntly. “But if we find the real culprit, then you’ll know for sure.” She snorted at his sceptical silence. “Come oooooon,” she drawled. “A bunch of extra eyes and ears for one teeny favour? It’s a good deal.”

“It’s not my choice to make,” said Wrench. Even as the words left his mouth, he realised he was making the first good decision in a distressingly long time.

“Oh, _fine_ .” Lenni flapped her hand dismissively. “Go and ask twinkle toes, but tell him it’s an offer he’d be crazy to pass up!”

“So you’re going to let me go?”

“Ha! You were never trapped here in the first place, idiot. Door’s over there.” She nodded to a doorway at one end of the dimly-lit room. Beyond, Wrench could make out a set of concrete stairs leading upward. He rolled his eyes and hauled himself to his feet.

He felt like he should say something to acknowledge the fact that Lenni had saved his ass from a beating - or at the very least, being arrested.

“Sorry about your trash can,” he lied. Lenni’s lip curled, and he beat a hasty retreat before she could change her mind about letting him go.

* * *

 << 4.1.0 >>

Lenni had been truthful about the lack of cell phone signal, at least. When Wrench emerged from the bunker - screwing his eyes shut against the harsh sunlight - his phone immediately began to buzz as ten hours’ worth of frantic calls and texts arrived at once. His phone battery had fared about as well as he had underground, but he had just about enough juice to make one call…

“ _You little shit_!” Frannie hissed as soon as she picked up. Wrench winced. He’d hoped to reach Josh, but it had been a long shot. “Where have you been?”

“Uhh, that’s a long story.” There was silence on Frannie’s end. A very _loud_ silence. “You’re pissed at me,” he guessed.

"You're goddamn right I'm pissed off!" Frannie exploded. Wrench held his phone away from his ear as his headache came surging back. "My grandson's been beaten black and blue and what do you do? Up and disappear in the middle of the night! He’s been worried sick! I nearly put out a missing person report!”

“I’m sorry,” said Wrench, and he meant it.

“Sorry for what? For disappearing off to who knows where? For making him sit up all night worrying about you? How could you do that to him?”

“Is he okay? Can I talk to him?”

“Define ‘okay’.” Frannie sighed, her temper allayed by her exhaustion. “He’s not here. He went to look for you with Sitara and that other nice boy.” She thought for a moment. “They said something about The Castro.” Ah. So they knew he’d been looking for Lenni. He wondered if they had heard about the bar brawl.  
"Wrench,” Frannie’s voice broke into his thoughts. “You’re an extremely clever young man. I expect you don’t hear that enough, so I’m telling you right now.”

“Thanks?"

“So stop acting like a fool and put your mind to better use. I know what you are, and I know what you're capable of." Ah. Wrench's brain wasn't in much of a state to figure out the particulars, but her tone suggested she wasn't talking about fixing cars or working as a contractor for CToS - both necessary lies he'd told her in the past.

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" He said, sounding more bitter than he felt. Frannie ignored the jibe.

“Find out who hurt Josh," she said. "Find them, and give them hell.”

She hung up, leaving Wrench to try and figure out where he was. Peering at the Bay Bridge in the distance, he guessed he was somewhere just outside of Oakland. He thought about calling for a cab, but one look at the state of himself and he quickly dismissed the idea - no self-respecting cab driver would let him anywhere near their car. He sighed in resignation, pocketed his phone, and, trying to ignore his mercilessly pounding head, went off in search of a bus stop.

* * *

 << 4.1.1 >>

Marcus was the first to notice when Wrench logged onto the VoIP channel.

“Dude!” he exclaimed, stopping dead in the middle of 16th Street. “Where you at, man? We’ve been searching for you for hours!” Sitara and Josh crowded around him, ignoring the death glares from everyone who had to dodge around them.

“Is that Wrench?” said Josh, his face flooding with relief. A second later they were all talking at once, asking questions and demanding answers faster than Wrench could keep up.

“Everyone, _shut the hell up_ !” he interrupted. “My head’s killing me!” His voice was starting to break up. “Look, I don’t have much battery left on my phone. Can we meet back at the- uh, at Gary’s place?” The others made noises of agreement, and a moment later Wrench dropped from the channel, his battery apparently exhausted.

“I’m gonna kill him,” said Sitara. Marcus folded his arms.

“You’re gonna have to wait in line.”

* * *

 << 4.2.0 >>

Wrench had smart-mouthed FBI agents, survived many fist fights and faced down a line of cops in riot gear on more than one occasion. Waiting for the others to get back was more nerve-wracking than all of those things combined. He swiped some painkillers from Gary's first aid cabinet on his way downstairs, and raided the mini fridge for something - anything - to drink. The jackhammer in his skull had almost stopped when the door to the hackerspace slid open and the others came thundering down the steps.

“Wrench!” Sitara practically flew down the stairs, closing the distance between them and landing a punch on his shoulder that made him recoil.  “You _dickhead_!”

"Ow! Fuck!" Wrench held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I deserved that."

"Yeah, you really did." Sitara shook her head, several emotions warring on her face. Eventually exasperation won out. "Don't ever do that to us again." Wrench placed his hand on his chest.

"Cross my heart."

He bumped fists with Marcus, who said nothing but gave him a look that spoke volumes. Then Josh appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and his heart dropped into his shoes. Josh’s bruises had come up a florid purple colour, making obvious the extent of his injuries. He was limping slightly and he looked like he'd hardly slept - but for Wrench, the most galling thing was the expression of pure relief on his face.

"Hey," he said, but Wrench hardly registered it as he reached out and pulled Josh into a fierce hug, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Josh’s arms tentatively circled his waist.

"I've been a shitty boyfriend.” Wrench’s voice was muffled by his mask and Josh’s hoodie. "My priorities have been all fucked up."  Peripherally, he was aware that Sitara and Marcus had moved away to give the two of them some space, but for now his world had condensed into the apologies tumbling out of his mouth and the man in his arms, who felt far too frail.

When Wrench had run out of things to apologise for (it took a while), Josh gently but firmly extricated himself from his embrace.

"You smell terrible," he said. Wrench let out a quiet laugh. 

“Sorry about that, too.”

"You don't have to keep saying that." Josh rubbed the back of his head - a flush had crept up from his neck and was spreading over his cheeks. Wrench longed to throw his arms around the man and kiss him. "Just… don't leave me like that again." His gaze fell to the floor. "I need you here."

"I'm not going anywhere," Wrench assured him. "...Except maybe a shower."

"Yeah," Josh's mouth turned up slightly at the corners. "You could use one of those."

* * *

 << 4.2.1 >>

“You have got to be kidding me,” Sitara declared. She, Josh and Marcus had commandeered one of the couches, but Wrench had been relegated to the floor a few feet away. (“You smell like a frat house on a Saturday night,” Marcus had told him flatly.) Wrench had just finished filling them in on the previous night's events - those that he could remember, anyway - including Lenni's offer. Sitara’s scepticism was shared by the others. They were all staring at him as if he had grown another head.

"Hey, I'm not saying we have to trust her," he protested. “I’m just telling you what happened.”

“Oh, we are _definitely_ not going to trust her,” said Sitara. Marcus made a noise of agreement.

“Yo, you’re lucky she didn’t lock you up in her creepy sex dungeon.”

“She doesn’t have a sex dungeon,” Wrench retorted, though a note of doubt crept into his voice. Marcus fixed him with a level stare.

“You don’t know that.”

“ _Dude-_ ”

“-Guys!” Sitara interrupted loudly. “Not in front of Josh. He’s been through enough.” Josh didn’t argue. “Anyway, it’s his choice, right?” Three pairs of eyes turned to Josh, who balked.

“Me?” he frowned, and shook his head. “No, we don’t need her. We got this.”

“Damn straight,” said Marcus approvingly.

“So… what now?” Wrench looked up at the others. “We’re stuck at a dead end.”

“Not quite.” A sly smile spread across Sitara’s face. “Marcus here is going to break into the S.F.P.D.” From the look on Josh’s face, this was news to him too. Wrench leaned forward eagerly, his interest piqued.

“Go on…”

* * *

 << 4.3.0 >>

When it came to getting into places he wasn’t supposed to be, Marcus was a professional. Even Sitara, whose frequent rooftop activities usually involved hurling herself, at speed, into places not designed for the human body to go, had to admit that he was a natural skulker. But even Marcus’ talent had its limits, and when he couldn’t go over, under, or around an obstacle, well. The only alternative was to go _through_ it.  
This was how he came to be standing outside a police station in downtown San Francisco in broad daylight, wearing one of Josh's polo shirts and a tie, with 'Marvyn' burning a hole in his pocket. He tugged at the too-tight collar and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to channel his inner Friendly IT Guy.

“Relax,” Sitara’s voice crackled through his headset.

“I’m relaxed.” Marcus adjusted the plasticky earpiece, trying to get rid of the sputtering noise. They’d gone for a cheap Chinese knockoff of the Nudle Voice headset for added authenticity. It looked better than it worked. Sitara’s laugh sounded vaguely musical in his ear.

“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re shitting bricks.” Okay, maybe he was - very tiny bricks, anyway. Marcus would almost take sneaking around and trying not to get shot over this.

Almost. Getting shot _hurt_.

"My feet are killing me," he grumbled. They'd placed gravel in his shoes to subtly change the way he walked. It was just enough to fool any biometric gait recognition software in the cameras, but not to impede him if he had to make a quick getaway. He hoped.

"Aww, corporate life is so hard," Sitara teased him. "Just breathe. Pretend it’s the Nudle op all over again.”

“Sure, except all the hipsters have been replaced with cops, and all the chai lattes with guns.”

"Please don't get shot,” said Josh. "I like that shirt."

“Ha, funny.” Marcus rolled his shoulders to ease some of his tension. “Alright, here goes nothing.” He pushed his tinted glasses up his nose, adjusted his tie, and ascended the handful of steps to the main entrance.

A reception desk and a metal detector gate sat between the entrance and another doorway, through which the rest of the facility lay. There was a security guard in Umeni uniform, too, the irony of which wasn’t lost on Marcus. He plastered his most affable smile on his face as he reached the desk, and the woman behind it looked up from her ancient computer with an expression of pure boredom.

“Hi,” Marcus said, going for his most non-threatening tone, “I’m here to fix your printer?” It was a gamble, but a fairly safe one, according to Josh. Sure enough, he caught a flicker of recognition in the receptionist’s expression.

“ID?” she asked, in a way that suggested the question had become automatic. Marcus had prepared for this - he cupped his hand around the laminated card clipped to his pocket and waved it casually in front of the glass. Sitara had put it together in about five seconds, with an entirely fake identity, of course. It wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, but who wanted to be the guy who inspected every ID badge at close range? The receptionist nodded and gestured to the door. 

“Down the hall and take a left. It’s the second door on the right.”

Marcus mumbled a thank you and headed for the door. The guard’s eyes followed him as he passed, but Marcus didn’t break his stride. The gate chirped as he stepped through, but when he reached for his laptop bag, the guard waved him through. Marcus had to force down a laugh - the poor bastard had taken one look at him and seen no weapon. He had no idea that Marcus’ laptop _was_ his weapon. He entered a brightly-lit, institutionally beige hallway and tried to look like he knew where he was going, even though he’d already forgotten the receptionist’s directions. It was the kind of hallway that looked the same no matter which way you turned.

“I’m in,” he said, as soon as he was out of earshot. His earpiece crackled again.

“Nice,” said Sitara. “Never underestimate a nerd in a polo shirt - oh, sorry, Josh.”

“Wait!” someone said loudly, and Marcus froze. He turned around slowly, his heart dropping into his shoes as the security guard strode towards him.

“Something wrong?”

“You’ll need an access card to get into the office. I’ll come with you.” Marcus nearly sagged with relief. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed the guard down the hallway. If the man noticed him sticking unusually close, he didn’t comment on it. By the time they reached their destination, Marcus had scanned and copied his access card with the NFC reader on his phone. 

“Here, all yours.” The guard waved his card at the reader on the wall, and the doors glided open.

“Thanks, man,” said Marcus, more genuinely than the guard could ever know.

The doors led to an open-plan office space. Everyone looked far too busy to pay attention to the tech guy, which suited Marcus down to the ground. He found the offending printer - a plastic monolith of outdated hardware that looked like it was held together by duct tape and positive thinking - and sat down on the ground with his back to it and opened his laptop.  
He Nudled the make and model of the printer in case anyone came over and started asking questions, then connected himself to the CCTV system (all CToS, of course) and began to poke around.

It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for - the server room was nestled between the restrooms and a janitor closet. He looked around to make sure no one was paying any attention to him and headed back out into the corridor, retracing his digital steps through the building. He kept the CCTV feed open, using it to avoid anyone who might wonder what he was doing.

“Guys, I found the server room,” he said, scanning his phone at the card reader and slipping inside. “Time to put Marvyn to work.” 

“Have you fixed the printer already?” Sitara teased. “That was fast.”

“Yeah, I turned it off and on again.” Marcus grabbed the innocuous-looking USB stick Ray had given him, found the right port and plugged it in. With any luck, it would be days, maybe even weeks, before someone found it and figured out something was wrong. That would be more than enough time for Ray to do whatever he needed to do.  
Marcus’ time frame was more urgent, though. As soon as Marvyn had scooped up the login credentials for everyone in the building, he found the account with the closest thing to administrator access and began to copy as much data as he possibly could, straight onto the hidden, encrypted partition on his hard drive.  
More accurately, it was a hidden partition within a hidden partition. All of DedSec’s devices were set up this way, as a precaution in case anyone was unlucky or stupid enough to get caught.

Within ten minutes, Marcus had a hard drive stuffed with stolen data and a sense of irrepressible smugness that came with a job well done. He unmounted his hidden partitions and slipped his laptop into its bag.  
“That’s it,” he announced. “I’m getting out of here.”

As the others made celebratory noises in the background, Marcus snuck back down the corridor, passing several offices along the way. One door was open, the room empty of people, but something caught Marcus’ eye, making him back up.  
"Guys,” he said, shaking his head. “You're not going to believe this."

"What?" Sitara sounded concerned.

"I just walked by the captain’s office. He keeps his password stuck to his monitor." He heard a slap that might have been Sitara smacking herself in the forehead.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the genius of the S.F.P.D,” said Wrench in the background.

“You know, as the I.T Guy, I really oughta change his password to something more secure,” said Marcus, already checking to make sure no one was coming down the hallway.

“It would be remiss of you not to.”

“How about the first million digits of pi?” Sitara’s laughter filled his earpiece.

“Now that _is_ secure.”

* * *

 << 4.4.0 >>

As soon as Marcus headed downstairs, he knew something was wrong. The others were crowded around Josh’s desk, watching something on his computer. Josh had his arms wrapped tightly around himself and was staring into space. Wrench soothingly rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades, but he held his other hand stiffly at his side, clenched into a white-knuckled fist.

“What’s going on?” Marcus said, a trickle of uneasiness pooling in his stomach. Wordlessly, the others moved over to let him in.

It was a video, the footage grainy and washed-out, as if it had been inexpertly brightened. It was hard to see anything from the shaky camera work, but Marcus could make out a group of three men. At least, he assumed they were men. Their faces were blurred out, adding to the general confusion. One of them took off running, and the others followed, the camera lurching as whoever was filming struggled to keep up. When it steadied out, the men were crowded around a figure huddled on the ground, their feet and fists rising up and down practically in unison.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Marcus drew back sharply as he realised what he was seeing. The camera shuddered as it moved closer, and one of the men pulled back. The figure was curled up in a ball with his arms thrown up over his head, but Marcus would have recognised him even without his green hoodie.  
“Holy shit,” he said again, feeling faintly sick. Sitara tried to answer, and found she couldn’t. She swallowed and tried again. 

“There’s sound, but…” she shook her head. “I had to mute it.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Lenni sent it to us, said one of her crew found it on a video-sharing website. The guy who uploaded it has all kinds of videos just like this - abusing homeless people, beating people up when they’re drunk…” Marcus looked away, unable to stomach any more.

“So this was just a random attack, then? Someone who likes to go after vulnerable people for fun?”

“Who fuckin’ cares why they did it?” Wrench was shaking with barely contained rage. “We need to find these shit stains-” he jabbed a finger at the screen.

“-And what?” Sitara demanded, shaking off Marcus’ hand as he tried to calm them both. “Get ourselves killed trying to get revenge?”

“It’s better than sitting here doing nothing-”

“Stop it.” Josh said, so quietly his voice was lost among the bickering. He shot out of his chair, sending it skidding across the concrete floor. “STOP IT!” The others fell quiet, taken aback by the outburst.  
“Don’t you get it?” his shoulders heaved as he took a shuddering breath. “You’re all missing the point. Lenni found this, not us. We missed it!” He shook his head. “We missed it.”

“What are you saying, hun?” Sitara asked softly. “You want to take her up on her offer?” 

“I don’t know.” Josh shrugged helplessly. “If there’s a chance it will help us stop them? Then yes. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” There was a long pause as the others processed this. Wrench was the first to recover.

“Hey, I’m with you, whatever you decide,” he said. Josh gave his hand a grateful squeeze.

“Okay, so we… what? Call a truce?” Marcus scratched his chin. “I mean, we can’t let her in here, right?” He gestured around at the hackerspace.

" _Fuck_ no," said Sitara, with feeling. "We’ll meet somewhere neutral. Somewhere away from her merry band of assholes.” 

“I guess I’ll give her a call.” Wrench grimaced. After this, he was going to need a drink. Several drinks.


	5. Chapter 5

<< 5.0.0 >>

“Well, isn’t this cosy?” Lenni drawled as she squeezed herself into the spare seat at Wrench and Josh’s table. They’d chosen the beer garden on Pier 39; it was still neutral territory, after all. The place was prettier at night, with the city lights playing off the water and the tables lit with strings of hanging bulbs. It had been quite romantic until Lenni came crashing in and ruined the mood.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she remarked, in the tone of voice that suggested she hoped she _was_. She did a double take when she caught sight of Josh.

“Holy shit snacks, you look like you did three rounds in the ring with a steamroller.” She eyed his bruised face. “You know, if you join my crew, no one would dare mess with ya.” Wrench scowled.

“You vulture.”

“Whatever, Frankenstein," Lenni snorted, before turning back to Josh. “The offer’s still open. Think it over.”

“So,” said Wrench, hoping to distract her from leering at his boyfriend, “The deal-”

“-is between me and sugar buns, here.” She raised her hand in a mocking little wave. “Off you go now. Bye-bye.” Wrench was about to politely suggest where Lenni could go and what she could do there, when Josh stopped him with the tiniest shake of his head. He slunk away to the balcony and pretended to admire the view. Lenni’s predatory smile only widened.

“Now, let’s talk business. Aw, don’t worry, sweetie,” her piercing voice turned saccharine. “I don’t bite.” From his spot at the railing, Wrench used two fingers to point at his mask, then at Lenni. _I’m watching you._

“If I fix your bio mods…” Josh trailed off as Lenni rolled her sleeves up. The dark discs stood out against her skin, with puckered scar tissue marking the incision points. From the data he’d stolen from her outside RenSense, they were mostly cosmetic - programmable light displays, that kind of thing. But if she could interface them with her phone, why not-

“ _And_ the NFC chip,” said Lenni, interrupting his thoughts. “Don’t think you get to half-ass this. I want it all back to the way it was. _Then_ I’ll see what I can do to help you. _Capiche_?”

“Okay.” Josh nodded. “The bio mods and the NFC chip.” He nervously wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and took out his phone. “Put your arm out like this-” he demonstrated, holding out one arm and placing it flat on the table, wrist facing up. Lenni followed suit. “I should be able to upload the fix the same way I uploaded the malware.” He held his phone to Lenni’s wrist, his brow furrowing. “Why get an NFC implant, anyway?”

“Why? Because it’s fuckin’ cool,” Lenni retorted.

“But it’s so vulnerable. Anyone who knows you have it can interact with it if they get close enough, and since you have it set up to read and write data…”

“That’s why I set up secure authentication, smarty pants. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about someone like you spoofing my passcode.” She fixed him with a look of begrudging respect. “Fuck me, right?” she swapped arms, and Josh began the process again. A couple of minutes passed.

“Frankenstein is the doctor,” he said quietly, and Lenni squinted at him over the rim of her glasses.

“What?”

“In the book. Frankenstein created the monster. So your insult doesn’t make any sense.”

“You are so cute. Fine, I’ll stop calling your little boyfriend names. Ya happy?”

“Yes.” Josh sat back as Lenni examined her implants with a critical eye. She took her phone out and ran her wrist over it experimentally. When it successfully unlocked and relocked her home screen, she made a satisfied sound.

“So, you definitely unlocked these, right? No sneaky lines of code I’m going to find later?”

“It’s clean.”

“And all the stuff you copied-”

“-I’m keeping. For insurance.”

“You little shit.” Lenni smirked and shook her head. “I’d expect nothing less from DedSec. Alright, good enough.”

“Are you done?” Wrench came back over, not waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, we’re done.” Lenni hauled herself upright. “You two lovebirds can go back to… whatever it is you weirdos do when you’re alone.”

“Wait.” Wrench scrambled to intercept her as she turned to leave. “What about your end of the deal?” Lenni rolled her eyes so hard she was in danger of losing them over the side of the pier.

“Jesus, relax!” she huffed impatiently. “I’m gonna go see if I can’t dissect that website and find out who uploaded the video. Hell, since I’m in a good mood, maybe I’ll take the whole damn site down.” She glanced over Wrench’s shoulder and shot Josh a wink. “I’ll be in touch.” She ambled away, leaving the two men alone together at last.

“That’s twice I could've thrown her to the sea lions,” Wrench said, sinking back into his chair. “I must be out of my mind.”

* * *

<< 5.1.0 >>

The virtual mountain of data Marcus had stolen from the S.F.P.D was daunting, to say the least. He was beginning to regret his smash-and-grab method when he, Sitara and Ray began to sift through it all. The NSA would have been proud, but that was hardly any consolation.

“Start with emails,” Ray told him wisely. “And not just the current ones. See if you can retrieve deleted ones. The order to delete the CCTV footage had to have come from somewhere.”

They worked in silence after that, their concentration renewed. An hour passed, then another, the only sound the whirring of fans and the tinny sounds coming from the arcade consoles in the corner.

“Guys,” said Marcus suddenly, “I think I know where the order came from.” He turned his laptop so they could see. Sitara leaned closer, the light from the screen making her appear ghostlike.

“This is dated four months ago,” she said.

“I know. Just read.”

The email was short and to the point, part of a longer thread between the chief of police, David Oakes, and someone else - a string of random numbers and a domain name she didn’t recognise. A throwaway account, she guessed.

“ _I have marked the footage for redaction, as per your request. Please take the necessary steps to ensure this does not happen again,”_ she read aloud. Marcus motioned with a finger for her to scroll down, so she did.  
“ _It is highly unlikely the key witness will report the incident. CToS could not identify them, which suggests they have entered the country illegally. All possible steps have been taken to protect the identity of the other parties involved.”_ Sitara’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “This proves it. It was a cover up.”

“It proves _an_ incident was covered up,” said Ray. “Sounds awful familiar though, don’t it?”

“If they ‘redacted’ footage before, they’ll have done it again,” said Marcus. “The chief’s just gotten smarter about covering his tracks.”

“This is huge.” Sitara got up and began to pace. “Deliberately erasing evidence to protect the criminals? How corrupt can you get?” Ray and Marcus nodded grimly.

“I think our next step is clear,” said Ray. “Find out who Oakes is protecting.” He turned to Marcus. “Can you look up that throwaway email, see if it's been in any data leaks?"

“I’m already on it.” Marcus took his laptop back, but Sitara made no move to join him. Instead, she grabbed a jacket and threw it on over her sweater. “Where are you going?”

“This has to be linked to the video Lenni sent us,” she told him. “Someone is going around victimising people who aren’t known to CToS. I’m gonna drive out to the tent city in San Jose and see if anyone there knows anything.”

“Damn, that’s a good idea,” said Ray. “You want me to come along? We can cover more ground,” he added, when Sitara looked as though she was about to refuse.

“Okay,” she said, only a little reluctantly.

They left Marcus to his work, and he settled in for the long haul. He hit the usual suspects first, hidden sites where high profile data dumps usually ended up. 

The email address had been hit by a breach. This wasn’t surprising, as the domain led him straight to an obscure web-based email service that promised a “CToS-proof temporary mailbox”. Sites like this were a dime a dozen, though they rarely delivered on these claims. This was obviously one of the poorer ones, judging from the massive list of randomly generated emails and passwords included in the data dump.

Marcus gave the password a shot, only to be greeted with an “account not found” message. He’d been expecting that, though, as the temporary mailboxes expired after thirty days.

He ran a perfunctory search through the rest of the data dump, not expecting to find the email listed anywhere else. To his surprise, he got one more hit. The address was linked to a MiiPay account - a third-party payment website with similar delusions of CToS-outwittery.

“No way,” Marcus scoffed, though his heart started to beat faster. He tried the password, his jaw dropping when the page accepted it, bringing him to a new page with an account summary and saved payment options. “ _No way,_ ” he said again, taking in the account number with a disbelieving laugh. He clicked on the ‘recent transactions’ tab, and froze, a rush of ice flooding through his veins.

The last transaction had been made two days ago.

* * *

 << 5.1.1 >>

Josh didn’t spend a lot of time in his apartment, so it was always a little strange to come back to it after days away. Luckily, Noah, his roommate, didn’t seem to mind, and never asked too many questions about what Josh got up to for days at a time. He also didn’t complain about the strange masked man who sometimes came to visit, which suited Wrench just fine.  
Tonight he was absent, which meant no awkward questions about Josh’s injuries. Wrench was pleased too, but for a different reason.

“Fuckin’ _finally_ ,” he said, sinking down onto the couch and slipping his mask off. He ran a tattooed hand through his hair. Josh grabbed two sodas from the fridge - technically Noah’s, but he could restock them later - and joined him. They sat in easy silence, punctuated by the hiss of cans opening, their knees almost but not quite touching.

It was Wrench who broke the silence first, when Josh gingerly rolled his stiff shoulder.

“You need more painkillers?"

"I'm okay."

"Okay. You sure? I mean, Gary’s got like a month's worth of the things. I think he’s secretly prepping for the apocalypse, or something.”

"I'm fine, really." Josh let his head fall back against the back of the couch, his shoulder brushing Wrench’s lightly. Touches like this Wrench took for granted with anyone else; with Josh it was all the more intimate.

He gently reached up and tilted Josh's face towards his, pressing their lips together. Their kisses deepened as Josh’s arms circled his waist. Heat flared in the pit of Wrench's belly, but when he pulled the man closer, he flinched and drew back as if stung.

“My lip,” he said sheepishly, to Wrench’s questioning gaze.

“Ah, shoot. Sorry.” There was a pause, each of them reluctant to draw apart. Then, Wrench leaned in again and gently brushed his lips over Josh’s cheekbone, just below his eye. He moved to his jaw, then his collarbone, planting feather light kisses on each bruise he found. Josh let out a quiet laugh as he realised what Wrench was doing.

“That could take a while,” he said. Wrench grinned at him, his hands already moving to the hem of Josh’s shirt.

"We have time.”

* * *

 << 5.2.0 >>

The flat patch of land outside the centre of San Jose was in a constant state of flux. The tent city was a semi-permanent fixture, as people from all over the Bay Area displaced by the ever-rising price of housing gradually came together as if by the inexorable pull of gravity. Every six months or so, city officials would get tired of the locals moaning about it and bring in police to dismantle the place, scattering its inhabitants to the wind. But they always came back.

It was starting to patter with rain again as Sitara and Ray entered the sprawl of tents and tarpaulin-covered shopping carts. They picked their way, in the dark, around a stack of plastic crates piled high with steel pots and pans, plastic plates and milk bottles half-filled with water. Somewhere nearby a dog barked, and faint music issued from cheap speakers. People side-eyed them as they passed, or kept their gaze firmly down.

“Mind how you go,” Ray said in a low voice. “Folks ‘round here aren’t so trusting of people coming in from outside.”

“I don’t blame them.” Sitara shook her head. “It’s just a matter of time before the cops come and flatten this place. And where the fuck else are they supposed to go?” She looked around and sighed. “Hopefully someone will realise we’re friendly, not trying to cause trouble.” Ray made a noise in the back of his throat that could have been agreement or doubt.

“You lost?” said a woman, eyeing them warily. She was probably somewhere in her fifties, but it was hard to tell. The hood of her raincoat was pulled down low over her frizzy hair.

“No, we’re hoping someone here can help us,” Sitara said. The woman fixed her with a look laden with cynicism. Undeterred, Sitara forged on. “A friend of ours got beaten up a couple of days ago-”

“-and what, you think someone from round here did it?” The woman scowled.

“No!” Sitara held up her hands in a gesture of peace. “That’s not it at all. We think the guy who did it has been targeting people who won’t go to the cops.”

“And that the cops are deliberately looking the other way,” Ray added, coming to her rescue.

“So why d’you need our help?”

“Do you know anyone who might have run into the guy?” The woman cocked her head to the side, narrowing her eyes at them both in turn, as if trying to decide whether they were genuine or not.

“My neighbour got his head bashed in by some thugs, coup’la weeks back,” she said reluctantly. Ray and Sitara exchanged a glance.

“Can we talk to him?”

“He’s not much of a talker, but I can show you where he is.” She turned and began to weave her way between the tents. She didn’t look back, and Sitara and Ray had to hurry to keep up.

“Thanks, uh…”

“Steph.”

Steph led them to the edge of the parkland, near the chain link fence that separated the tent city from the road. A large cardboard sign was tied to the fence, with painted letters that read “HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT”. Close by were two tents, one that apparently belonged to Steph. She went over to the other tent and loudly tapped the toe of her boot against a large steel tub that was sitting outside, collecting rainwater.

“Hey, Paul!” There was no answer, but there was the sound of a sleeping bag rustling and then the zip of a tent flap being opened. A face appeared in the opening.

Paul was young - his face bore lines like everyone else in the tent city, but he still hadn’t lost the round edges of childhood. His expression was serious, earnest - he reminded Sitara of Josh. She took in the greenish-yellow bruises that covered his face. His nose had been broken at some point. He (or someone else) kept his hair shorn to a faint stubble, and a raised line of scars ran along his scalp, disappearing behind his ear. He’d had stitches, she was pretty sure.

“Hi, Paul,” she said, gathering her wits and managing a watery smile. “I heard you were attacked recently.” Paul flinched almost imperceptibly, his eyes flicking to Steph for reassurance.

“It’s okay, kid. They’re trying to help.” Steph’s expression was unreadable.

“Do you remember what happened?” Paul’s lips moved soundlessly for a few seconds, as if he was out of practice when it came to talking.

“I asked this guy for some change, and his friend just-” his lips moved again as he tried to find the words. “-laid into me. Got me on the ground and started kicking me. The other guy filmed the whole thing, just laughing the whole time.” Ray uttered a curse under his breath. Sitara ignored him.

“Do you remember what they looked like?”

“I dunno.” Paul shrugged, his gaze fixed on his shoes. “College students.”

“Did they look well-off?” Sitara prompted him, an idea starting to form in the back of her mind. “You asked them for money, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me?” she was grasping at straws now, in the vain hope that Paul could tell her something - anything - new. He shook his head, already retreating back into his tent, when Steph cleared her throat.

“Actually, I might have somethin’ for ya.” She scratched her chin absently. “I brought Paul back from the-” she hesitated, “-doctor. We passed the place where it happened. Popular spot, you know? Anyway, there was this blue van and these guys messing around with the cameras.”

“It’s definitely the same guys,” said Sitara when she and Ray arrived back at the car. They had left Paul and Steph to warn the others. ‘ _At least try to stay in groups,’_ Sitara had said, but from the look Steph had given her, she knew there was nothing she could tell them they didn’t already know. The rain had started in earnest now, drumming on the windows and turning the world outside grey. The tent city blurred into a swirl of brightly coloured nylon as they pulled away.

"Sitara," Ray said, his tone serious. "I know you don't want to hear this, but at some point you're going to have to make a decision."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" She had a suspicion of what was coming next. She wasn’t wrong.

"Are you gonna go public with all this, or go to war?"

"Why not both?"

"You know why. The game changed as soon as Marcus found those emails. If we go after these guys, they'll use their connection with the chief of police to hit back, and they won't fuck around." Sitara's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"But we’ll get justice for all the other people who have been hurt."

"Will we?" Ray didn't look so sure. "Guys like that have a habit of slipping through the cracks."

"We have proof that Oakes is corrupt. People can't just ignore that!"

"No, but there are plenty of ways the S.F.P.D can spin it to make it look like nothing. It's happened before."

"So you think we should... what? Take matters into our own hands like we did with the Tezcas?" Sitara realised she was practically shouting, and bit her lip. She made the turn back onto the freeway more forcefully than she had intended, sending Ray sprawling against the passenger side door.

"Not my place to tell you what to do," Ray said, pointedly not commenting on Sitara’s driving. "I'm just saying, it's something to think about."

* * *

 << 5.3.0 >>

_Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!_

Wrench and Josh were shaken awake as Wrench’s phone blasted apart the silence.

_Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!_

Josh mumbled something unintelligible and buried his face in his pillow. Wrench swore and groggily fumbled around trying to find the offending piece of technology. He rolled out of bed, dragging the covers with him, to Josh’s consternation.

_Fuck you, I won’t do what you-_

He eventually found his phone underneath his pants, on the other side of the room, and raised it to his ear.

"Sitara," he said, a little breathlessly, "if this is revenge for waking you up the other night-"

"Oh please," laughed Sitara. "It's not even early."

"It's-" Wrench checked. "-nine thirty. It's practically dawn."

"Well, sorry for the early wake up call, but we could use you and Josh back at the hackerspace. You’re going to want to hear this.”

Forty-five minutes later they trudged down the stairs, carrying the breakfast they had hastily grabbed from a food truck on the way.

“I got a name.” Marcus looked exhausted, but very pleased with himself. “Henry Tuttle.”

“Who?” Wrench took a swig of his coffee, in the hope it would galvanise his brain into doing its job. He met Sitara’s incredulous stare with indifference and pulled his bagel out of its bag.

“Seriously? Don’t you _ever_ pay attention to the news? He’s a politician, but also a _huge_ advocate for the militarization of the police. When we exposed the crazy shit Tidis was doing, he backed them up.” Wrench sat up straighter, his memory finally kicking into gear.

“I remember him now. That fuckstick was on TV talking about how protestors deserve to get shot down by drones.”

“ _If people want to fly in the face of authority, bringing violence to the streets_ ,” Marcus began, in his most pompous voice.

“ _Then they should expect to get what’s coming to them_ ,” Wrench finished for him. “Yeah, what a tool.”

“I don’t understand.” Josh was used to feeling like he was missing something - usually when the others were bandying innuendo back and forth - but in this case it was as if he was trying to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. “What does Tuttle have to do with me?”

“We found emails between him and the chief of police, David Oakes. He paid Oakes off in exchange for deleting CCTV footage,” Sitara explained. “On multiple occasions.”

“So he’s protecting whoever is making those videos,” said Josh, realisation dawning.

“I guess he also hired someone to make sure nothing was left behind at the crime scene,” said Marcus. “Whoever it was, they were thorough. They made sure nothing was left behind, not even trash.”

“But we still don’t know who fuckin’ did it.” Wrench’s voice tightened with frustration.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Sitara, her jaw set determinedly. “Before anyone else gets hurt.”

* * *

 << 5.4.0 >>

For Josh, the rest of the morning passed in a blur as he wracked his brains, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit. He and Marcus scoured the rest of the files they had stolen from the S.F.P.D, but it was no use. Apparently, the chief of police had learned to be more careful since taking his first bribe from Henry Tuttle.

“Shame it wasn’t the captain,” Marcus sighed, thinking of the post-it-note stuck to the man’s computer. “It would make our job a whole lot easier.”

Josh’s frustration mounted as the day went on. He was _missing_ something. He had to be. Finally, in desperation, he Nudled the name ‘Tuttle’. The top results led straight back to the politician’s website, but as he scrolled down to the ‘news’ hits, he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Sitara,” he said, his voice low but urgent. Sitara hurried over, leaning over his shoulder with widening eyes.

“ _Karl_ Tuttle?” She scanned the headlines, and Josh’s heart began to pound as she read them aloud. “Politician’s son in drunken brawl. Settlement in Tuttle assault case for $75,000. Homeless man accuses Tuttle of threats, verbal abuse… this can’t be a coincidence.”

“It would explain a lot,” said Josh.

“It would,” Sitara agreed. “Of course Henry Tuttle would do anything to stop yet another story about his shithead of a son. And who better to make it all go away than his good friend Police Chief David Oakes.”

They were still reeling from Josh’s discovery when Marcus’ phone rang. He took one look at the caller ID and grimaced.

“It’s Lenni.”

“I got a name, I got an IP, I got a location,” crowed Lenni as soon as he answered. “You’re welcome, fuckface.” Her voice was piercing enough that it rang out across the hackerspace. Everyone’s eyes fell on Marcus.

“Seriously?”

“Yeeep - Giles Richmond.” Marcus made a grab for a pen, knocked it onto the floor and scrambled to pick it up, entirely missing the address she was reciting for him.

“Say that again?” he said, and Lenni tutted and repeated it slowly, as if she were talking to someone particularly dense.

“The IP address is where the video was uploaded from, the name I got from the email address associated with the account. The address… well, I’ll let you figure that one out yourself.”

“Wow. You actually came through for us.” Marcus sounded almost grateful.

“Don’t get all mushy and shit. Tootsie Roll and I had a deal.” Lenni’s voice dripped with scorn. “Now go make your lil’ video, or whatever,” she added, and hung up. 

It was Wrench who eventually broke the silence that followed.

“Who the _hell,”_ he said, echoing everyone’s thoughts, “is Giles Richmond?”


	6. Chapter 6

<< 6.0.0 >>

According to Nudle Maps, the address Lenni had given Marcus was near Ocean Beach. He and Wrench set off right away, while Sitara and Josh stayed behind to see what they could dig up about Giles Richmond.

“Richmond doesn’t keep his !Nvite account very private.” Josh couldn’t quite mask his mounting excitement, but everyone had the same feeling. The puzzle was almost complete - all they had to do was make the pieces fit.

“He’s enrolled at SFU, plays table tennis…” Sitara read over his shoulder.

“Tonight he’s at some kind of anniversary party on his dad’s yacht.”

“I hate him already,” Wrench said over the VoIP channel. Sitara made a noise of agreement.

“He has easily over a thousand people on his friends list. What are the chances Karl Tuttle is one of them?”

“He is,” Josh said, scrolling through the man’s profile. “That’s our link to Henry Tuttle.”

That only left one job - to prove it.

The apartment was in a two-storey, terracotta-coloured building shadowed by the bigger apartments around it. There were no lights on upstairs, and no one nearby to stop Marcus and Wrench from slipping down the side of the building and using a trash can to hoist themselves up onto the balcony.

The balcony door was protected with a metal gate and a keypad. Wrench stepped forward, produced a miniature tool roll from his back pocket and selected a small screwdriver with a practiced air. Whistling softly while he worked, he deftly popped the faceplate off the keypad and stuck a smaller screwdriver into the little hole he’d revealed.

“These things always have a reset button, if you know where to look,” he explained, with all the serenity of a Zen master. As he tackled the lock on the inner door, Marcus peered through the darkened window into the living area. From what he could see, Giles Richmond was a typical student - a laundry basket sat on the couch, and there were empty takeout containers sitting on the coffee table.

A light blinked in the gloom, then another, and another. Marcus’ heart skipped a beat - there was something _moving._

“He has a HAUM robot,” he hissed, ducking out of sight.

“Can you deal with it? I’m kind of busy here.” Wrench was still jiggling away at the lock. Marcus grabbed his phone and waited for the robot’s wireless connection to register on it. As soon as it appeared he retrieved its serial number, using the exploit Josh had discovered back when they were ‘building’ Wrench Jr. With the serial number, it was a simple task to get into the robot’s remote control settings - hardly anyone bothered changing the password from the default - and shut it down.

A few moments later Wrench made a satisfied noise, and let the door swing open.

They left the lights off as they crept into the apartment. The doorway opened out into the open-plan space Marcus had seen through the window. The robot stood in the middle of the kitchenette, a silent sentinel of plastic and chrome.

A laptop sat on a desk in one corner of the living room - an overpriced gaming model that Marcus wouldn’t be caught dead using. He took a seat at the desk and booted it up while Wrench explored the rest of the house. Giles had set a password on his user account, but that hardly mattered - all Marcus needed was his usual kit - he plugged it into the closest USB port and connected his laptop.

He’d half expected to find a hidden partition that he would have to copy and take back to Josh to decrypt, but given Richmond’s lackadaisical approach to the privacy settings on his !Nvite account, Marcus had to admit his faith was a little misplaced. He definitely hadn’t expected to find the raw video files sitting in a folder on the man’s desktop, but there they were - meticulously labelled and dated, to boot.

“This guy’s a _moron_ ,” he said disbelievingly.

“Almost doesn’t seem fair, does it?” said Wrench, when Marcus called him over to confirm what he was seeing.

“You feel bad for the guy?” Wrench snorted.

“Nah, fuck him, and fuck his friends, too. Once we match the guys in the videos to their !Nvite profiles...” he trailed off, rapping his knuckles suggestively against the desk top.

Marcus transferred the files onto his laptop and unplugged his kit. He and Wrench were halfway out the door when Wrench stopped in his tracks, turning back towards the robot standing motionless in the kitchen.

“Wait,” he said, slowly. “I have an idea. If we jailbreak the robot, we can access the security cam feature remotely and use it to get a confession out of Richmond.”

“Dude, what? That’s going to take hours!” said Marcus, shaking his head.

“No it won’t!” Wrench shot back, a touch defensively. “Josh and I have been working on an improved version of my homebrew HAUM firmware.” Marcus suddenly realised what he was saying.

“You’re rebuilding Wrench Jr?”

“There can only be one Wrench Jr,” said Wrench firmly. “Anyway, my point is we have a robot sitting right here that we can use! We can reprogram him, M!” he insisted, when Marcus hesitated. “We have the technology!”

“Okay,” said Marcus eventually, giving in. Wrench gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder and ducked back inside, making a beeline for the robot. Within a few minutes he had requisitioned Marcus’ laptop to transfer his ‘special’ firmware over, and littered the floor with his tools as he worked on removing the robot’s protective plating.

With Marcus’ help, Wrench bypassed the robot’s boot sequence, and what followed was a long, nervous wait as the custom firmware installed. Neither of them needed to point out that, if the installation failed, they could end up leaving Giles with a very expensive, very conspicuous brick. After what seemed like hours, the robot gave a series of harsh beeps and unceremoniously rebooted itself. This took a nail-bitingly long time; Wrench was just reaching for the power button when the robot’s interface lit up.

“He fuckin’ liiiives!” he announced, throwing his arms in the air. He and Marcus sat back to admire their work for a moment before starting the arduous task of putting the robot back together.

“Someone just posted on Giles’ !Nvite page,” Josh said urgently over the VoIP channel. “I’m pretty sure he’s on his way back home.”

“We’re just leaving,” Marcus assured him, motioning for Wrench to hurry it up. “Dude,” he hissed, “we need to get out of here!”

“Just… a few… more… minutes…” Wrench was fumbling with the robot’s outer plating as he screwed it into place. “Wait, is that an extra screw?”

“ _Wrench!”_

“Okay, okay, I’ve got it! I just need to set up the remote access-”

“Can we do that elsewhere? Maybe not in the middle of the guy’s kitchen?”

Wrench reluctantly rolled up his tools and shoved them back in his pocket. Marcus bundled him out of the back door, and they hastily climbed down from the balcony. When they reached the street, Wrench grabbed Marcus’ laptop once more and ducked inside a bus shelter to finish setting up the camera feed, so that it would stream to them directly.

Marcus had just stuffed his laptop back in its bag when a car pulled up outside the apartment. Wrench froze, watching through the glass as the car door opened, and a young, well-dressed man climbed out. Marcus put a warning hand on his shoulder as the man climbed the steps and let himself in. Wrench hadn’t realised he was clenching his fists, but later, when he and Marcus returned to the hackerspace in tense silence, he noticed a set of crescent-shaped welts on his palms, where his nails had dug into his skin.

* * *

 << 6.1.0 >>

They didn’t have to wait long for Richmond’s confession. While Marcus and Wrench had been careful not to leave any clue they’d been in the man’s apartment, Lenni and her crew had apparently been rather busy in the meantime.

“Guys?” Josh’s voice floated over to the others. He’d kept up his vigil over the feed from Richmond’s apartment ever since Marcus and Wrench arrived back. Everyone dropped what they were doing and crammed themselves around the laptop.

“I’m telling you, the account’s gone!” Giles Richmond paced up and down his apartment, his phone pressed to his ear. As his Wrench-ified HAUM robot trundled past, his unseen watchers got a good passing glimpse of him. His face was tight with stress. “Yes, _gone_! All the videos, everything.” There was a long pause.

“You’re recording this, right?” Marcus whispered, and Josh nodded, not taking his eyes off the screen.

 “Yeah, I still have the raw files, but what if they managed to hack my computer?” Giles’ voice rose in pitch.

“Too late, asshole,” muttered Wrench.

“Maybe I should just delete everything. No, fuck _you,_ Karl! The videos were your idea in the first place!” There was a collective intake of breath - no one wanted to miss what came next. “Oh, you think your dad gives a shit what happens to me? He might have made all your problems go away, but if my name ends up tied to any of this, I’m fucked!” Whatever Tuttle’s reply had been, it didn’t do any good, because Giles let out a drawn-out, animal growl of frustration and threw his phone across the room, sinking down onto his couch with his head in his hands.

“We got him,” Sitara whispered, hardly daring to say the words out loud. A laugh bubbled its way out of her throat, and soon everyone was laughing and elatedly clapping each other on the back. Wrench leaned over and snaked his arms around Josh’s shoulders from behind, resting his chin on his head.

“This doesn’t feel real,” Josh said, still staring at the feed, even though Giles’ robot had rolled away into another room, leaving the man to his misery.

“Oh, it’s real,” Wrench told him, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “And now we’re gonna find Tuttle and make him pay for what he did to you.” The others’ laugher faded somewhat. As they exchanged glances, Wrench thought he saw something like guilt flicker over Sitara’s face. “What?” he said, straightening up and looking at each of them in turn. No one answered.  
“ _What_?” he demanded.

* * *

 << 6.1.1 >>

_“WHY THE HELL NOT?”_ Wrench’s tools rattled violently as his fist slammed into the bench top. His knuckles were bleeding again - they’d taken a lot of abuse over the last few days, and it showed. “Why can’t we just firebomb the guy’s car and be done with it?”

“ _Because_ , Wrench, our best chance of getting any justice at all is to make all the evidence public,” Sitara explained, for perhaps the fifth time. The argument had escalated into an all-out war, and her patience was worn down to a paper-thin veneer. The others could see her composure starting to crack, but Wrench either hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care.

“Why the _fuck_ can’t we do both?”

“What, post the video and _then_ burn his house down? We need people on our side. We need to make them care about all the shit Tuttle and Oakes and the others have been doing.”

“All this time I thought we were going to give them what they deserved! And _you_ -” Wrench spun round and jabbed a finger at Marcus, “-you let me think that! I’d have kicked down Richmond’s door if you hadn’t dragged me away!”

“Hey, I was looking out for you, man,” Marcus said, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. Wrench turned away furiously.

“Sitara’s right.” Josh had been watching the row unfold, his hands clenched into fists to stop them from shaking. “This is bigger than me. Getting revenge isn’t going to stop guys like Tuttle and Oakes from abusing the system.” His heart was hammering against his ribs. Wrench was silent for a long moment, until all at once his anger seemed to dissipate, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion. He came over and took Josh’s hands in his. 

“You never wanted revenge,” he said quietly. “Did you?”

“I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” Wrench’s shoulders slumped as he nodded slowly, finally understanding.

“I fuckin’ love you,” he said, his voice trembling. He sank into Josh’s arms and buried his face in his shoulder. “You’ve been so brave, and-” he trailed off. Josh felt a twinge of panic. This was all wrong - _he_ was the one who freaked out, who cracked under pressure, who got beaten up in parking lots. Wrench was the one who picked him up, who never stopped going as long as there was someone or something to fight.

Except now the fight had gone out of him. He was running on empty, just like the rest of them.

“I love you too.” Josh wrapped his arms around Wrench’s shaking shoulders. “It’s okay,” he added, in a whisper. “It’s over.” Wrench’s mask dug uncomfortably into his shoulder, and he was squeezing Josh tight - too tight - but Josh held on anyway, until Wrench finally took a shuddering breath and let him go.

“Okay.” He turned to Sitara, his mask blank, unreadable. “Do what you gotta do.”

* * *

 << 6.2.0 >>

_“Citizens of the digital age, welcome._

_The S.F.P.D is meant to protect you, but instead that protection is reserved only for the rich and well-connected, while the most vulnerable members of our society are left to fend for themselves._

_The Chief of Police, David Oakes, has been taking bribes in exchange for sweeping the crimes of a certain few under the rug._

_Henry Tuttle has abused his position and used his support for the militarization of our police force to protect his son, Karl Tuttle, and his friends from facing justice for their crimes._

_Even as the weight of the law is being used to oppress homeless people and asylum seekers, and make examples out of anyone who doesn’t accept the invasiveness of CToS, where is it when those same people need protection from real criminals?_

_Your taxes support this system, but the system doesn’t support you._

_DedSec has given you the truth._

_Do what you will.”_

The video was a work of art, like all Sitara’s creations. She’d taken the video of Josh’s attack and juxtaposed it with archival footage of police beating protestors as pixelated money rained across the screen. She added some spectacularly unflattering photos of David Oakes, Henry Tuttle and, of course, Karl, Giles and the others.

At first the video rippled out through DedSec’s usual channels, gradually picking up momentum as the full story spread. It travelled faster than she could keep track of it, fuelled by outrage and curiosity alike.

When the first copyright strike hit, Sitara knew she’d succeeded. Even as she watched, the video was being re-uploaded faster than it could be removed, as hundreds, no, _thousands_ of people shared, downloaded and posted it again. It was like a hydra - cut off one head, and seven more appeared in its place. The same went for Marcus’ data dump - once the press got their hands on it, there would be no burying it.

She had no way of knowing what the next few days would bring - resignations from both Oakley and Tuttle, at the very least. Maybe even formal charges for the boys in the videos. It was all up to the good people of San Francisco and whether they cared enough. At the very least, the streets would be just a little safer for those who needed it the most.

A little after midnight, Sitara dragged herself away from her laptop and joined the others. They were lounging in front of the wall-o’-screens, watching a bad action movie. As she settled, she stole a glance at Josh. Wrench had draped his legs over his lap, which he was tolerating - for now, at least. His bruises were starting to turn a sickly green, giving him a distinctly unhealthy look, but he hadn’t complained about the pain, not since that first, frightening night.

She was about to turn away, when Josh looked up and caught her eye, and smiled.

* * *

 << 6.2.1 >>

Lenni huffed impatiently as raindrops spattered all around her, the clouds that had been threatening rain all day finally deciding they’d had enough. She leaned against the wall of the building and pulled out her vape pen - if she was going to freeze her ass off out here in some disgusting alley in the middle of Oakland, she might as well try to enjoy herself. It was late, and the alley was dark, but the stream of vapour caught the faint light from the street as she exhaled it into the damp air.

A few minutes later she heard a faint noise from behind her. As she turned, a lanky shape separated itself from the shadows and loped towards her.

“Cut the crap,” she said, “I know it’s you.” Wrench’s mask flickered on, two ghostly Xs floating in the dark. “You’re late.”

“My bad.” Wrench didn’t sound sorry at all.

 “So, your little friends pussied out?” Lenni always knew which buttons to press - it was a talent, and she was damned if she wasn’t going to use it every chance she got. Wrench stiffened, right on cue. It was quite precious, really.

“They don’t know I’m doing this.”

“Mhm.” Lenni’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Which means you’re sneaking around behind their backs.”

"I made a promise to someone.”

“Oh, spare me.” Lenni flapped her hand dismissively. “I was just making an observation. I didn’t ask for your life story.” She pocketed her vape pen and smacked her lips. “So, are we going to do this thing or what?”

“You know what to do?” he asked, and Lenni rolled her eyes and rapped the CToS box mounted on the wall with her knuckles.

“Yeah, yeah. This ain’t my first rodeo.” Wrench nodded, shoved his hands in his pockets and set off down the alley, towards the building’s entrance. 

"This doesn't make us friends, okay?” Lenni called after him, her voice brimming with scorn. “After tonight, I'm going right back to shitting on you. Maybe I'll hack your stupid forum, huh? Or kidnap Marcus and put him in my sex dungeon." Wrench paused and looked at her over his shoulder.

"You actually have a sex dungeon?"

"If you don't watch yourself, you'll find out." She chuckled darkly to herself as Wrench turned the corner and vanished from sight.

* * *

 << 6.2.2 >>

Karl Tuttle sat in the corner of the dingy bar with his back to the wall, keeping his head down. He had to fight the urge to glance up every time the door opened. He nursed his beer - was it his fourth or fifth? - and studiously ignored the few other patrons. The bar girl’s gaze had held his for just a little longer than necessary. Any other night he’d have assumed she was flirting, but paranoia sat in his gut, cold and heavy. Had she recognised him?

All he had to do was keep a low profile, his dad had said. Stay within sight of the CToS cameras, avoid trouble. Don’t get pulled into any confrontations.

That was easy for him to say. Henry Tuttle carried the extra weight of respectability around, wrapping himself in it like a suit of armour. What did Karl have? A bunch of useless assholes who dropped him like a live grenade the moment the videos came out. Karl snorted bitterly and downed the rest of his beer.

He was about to call for another when a lanky guy in a mask swept into the bar, the door slamming shut behind him, and made a beeline for Karl’s table. In one smooth motion he pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Hi, Karl.” The guy’s voice was distorted, but friendly. Cordial, even. But the knuckles on his right hand were bruised, scabbed. Those were knuckles to be wary of.  “You know who I am?” Karl looked him up and down, pausing when he saw the logo on the guy’s t-shirt. DedSec. _Shit._ Cold dread ran its icy fingers down his spine.

“You’re crazy if you think you can try anything,” Karl stammered, his eyes involuntarily swivelling to the camera mounted over the bar. The masked man followed his gaze, before turning back to him, the lights on his mask dancing with amusement.

“That’s not gonna help you,” he said.

“This place is full of witnesses.”

“ _Relax_ , man!” The guy held up his tattooed hands in a gesture of peace. “I came to deliver a message.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“Gram Gram sends her love,” he said. Then, calmly, he leaned over the table and punched Karl in the face.

**Author's Note:**

> Valencia Street is a real place near Mission Dolores Park, but I can’t attest to any other geographical or other accuracies. I’m sure its parking lots are perfectly respectable.


End file.
